Religion is a private matter, treat it like your dick, don't show it off and don't shove it down other peoples throats. (Stolen from the Funny picture thread)

That includes Atheism.

I sort of agree but there is a need to "detox" the human race from the crack cocaine religion is for many people, we would be much better off.

Wait - are you suggesting that something which is obvious to you should be obvious to everyone? Flattering yourself a bit?

What about someone who's deeply religious and sees their cancer suddenly go into remission. Would it not be obvious to them that there is indeed a God?

Being "obvious" to ones perception has no place in science (hence my discussion with Skybird regarding intuition). It does, however, have a place in religion. While I would agree with you in disagreeing with religion, what you find "obviously wrong" I find to be "largely unlikely". However, I won't outright dimiss the concept on the grounds that I can only accurately trace its sources back a millenia or so.What would you say if science posited that a creator may be possible? Right now we believe that we may be able to create whole universes in a laboratory.

Also, I don't believe that the concepts behind religion are "absurd" at all. Frankly, I think far less of a person who would posit such a thought than a person who is religious, although I would be in fundamental agreement with the former.

See, I happen to disagree with Marx's idea that religion is the mass' opiate. Rather, I believe religion provides a structure (spiritual and disciplinary) than many people would otherwise seek and quite frankly I'd rather them file into a peaceful church on Sundays than join some militant group or another. If religion is nothing more than a tool created by man (which I believe it is), than it serves SOME purpose. That purpose can range from helpful to absurd, as you put it. But ultimately what defines it is indeed the purpose - not the overarching concept.

If religion motivates people to be philantropic, kind, devoted, etc., that which you see as "absurd" I see as a great benefit to humanity. When religion motivates people to fight, kill, maim, etc., that which you see as absurd I see as a threat that must be countered. But it's not "religion" (as system in belief based upon a deity or deities) that's the problem, it's the SPECIFIC one.

Is God real? I don't think so. But many people truly believe that he IS real, and so his influence is indeed very real. Sure, we could do without the negative influences religion has (or can we??? Another topic I'll explore in another thread) - but would we want to do without the positives?

In fact, the United States is based upon the wonderful concept of God - not the deity, mind you, but the idea that freedom is "God-given", meaning not something granted by man, which means that man should not have the power to take it. In such a case, I don't consider God absurd at all.

Ultimately that you disdain your fellow man merely because of their beliefs rather than the outward manifestation of said beliefs is something only you must deal with daily, and I certainly don't envy such a position. Personally I respect the man who follows, say, Jesus and decides to attempt to become Christ-like (even if you consider him a mythical figure, what he was certainly was beautiful). We may disagree, but I respect him nonetheless. On the other hand, the man who decides to pervert that vision into something unpleasant entirely I oppose.

I've found that beliefs in any system, throughout history, have not caused a single conflict except in the cases where one belief cannot tolerate the existance of another. The fact that you believe that an entire classification of a belief is practically intolerable (absurd) is more concerning to me than religion by far.

In closing, you may wish to try to understand that your perception of the world (and faculties for dealing with it) are not the same as everyone else's. That does not make others absurd, it just makes them differently inclined. Once you realize this you may become a happier person.

You sure you despise Marx? Your belief in such thought control is concerning.

@ Aramike: Well said! I feel much the same way, in that while we can learn a lot of 'things' we never really know anything. I know longer believe there's a God, but I'm faced with the certainty that I've been wrong before, and the possibility that I could be wrong about that. I've touched on that same problem of "knowing" in the past, and the fact is still the same - the person who thinks he knows something for certain not only doesn't realize he could be missing something, but is incapable of learning something new.

When I say detox I do not mean forcefully, just TRY to convince others on a wider scale. I despise Marx, very much.

I always liked what Napoleon didn't say about religion.

"Religion was created to prevent the poor from killing the rich".

:D

It is very easy to be an atheist when you are successful or when life is good. A man could sit back and say "I don’t need God. What is God?"
But it is very difficult to be an atheist when you are lying on the death bed, because you begin thinking "what if these people are right?"

You simply do not take the time to read carefully enough what I wrote. I have not "determined for certain what our limitations are". I said that it makes little sense to assume that something of smaller size can embrace something of bigger size, by which I indicated and explained that in order to fully understand this system "universe" we probably need to become the system universe itself, becasue as a part of said system universe we alredy see it necessarily from a limited, distorted perspective. That'S why we imagine ideas about it, sometimes more systematically, then we call it science, sometimes less systemtically, then we call it fantasy.

But I do, since the scientific methodology is our porimary tool to learn and to understand and to expand our knowedge by creating new questions. Also I refer to it becasaeu since the beginning of this debate you mistake causality with this reasonably methodology, and you tell me that I "overvalue" causality in the universe's nature. I do not. I just insist on that deciding what "knowledge" (-> theory) we accept must be done via this methodology. this method may be causal or reaosnable or whatever, but it nevertheless can revbeal non-causal features of the universe we live in.

The method we work by is important. If we do not uphold the standard of the classical Greek model of how science must be run, then we sooner or later end up like some relgious nutheads wanting to tell us that for example creationism is a science, too. That is hilarious a statement, sure, but even more important: it is confused, and it blinds clear knowledge and distinction of concepts.

And one more time you misperceive me completely. I have explained it I think three times now. But the chain of steps and phases in the scientific process - that surely is a causal chain, yes. but the findings must not necessarily reveal a fully causal nature of the observed universe. I also stick to the distincition between "observable universe" which our scinece can deal with and tries to explain in functionality since it began it's existence, and "real" uni-/multi-/whateververse(s). Causality is not the issue here. And conclusions from theoretic science and theoretic maths still need to be proven in the scientific process. They can produce inspirations, and hints what to watch out for, and when and where - but they stay in the realm of abstract mind-experiments only as long as their concllusions have not been turned into something more "solid". This does not render them useless, they are not, by far not. It just shows them their place, and it defines the distinction between abstraction and verified theory that stands at the end of a scientific process - not at its beginning.

I would not disagree. But you are basing on if'S and take them as certainty, it seems. the observable universe for sure is not finite, according to all we know, and also if basing on the theory on Big Bang, it even cannot be infinite. If there is something bigger, is assumed by some, not thought about by others, but more than abstract ideas we do not have, currently.

See above. And you tell me I think too causally? ;)

I would say science does not deal with the Why at all, that is for arts, philosophy, and spirituality, and the "what" is what we perceive - the object of our observation that leads us to observe it systematically. Science tries to explain the HOW by which things run. and this is the reason, why it necessarily always creates new questions for every piece we have added to our knowledge. Hence my assumptions that we never can know it all about the universe - by the way of our doing we very basically create and define the new lacks in knowledge. Seen that way, science maybe pretty much is an engineer. and science can never xplain the universe inf ull, for another reason. We can define and conclude on what we call nature's laws, and we can answer any question on why a given phenomeneon is like this or that by just saying that it is like that becasue of law x or theorem y. But that again is only an answer to the question of "how" - it does never answer "why" the given phenomeneon is attributed by this law. The "is-ness", the "so-being" of things, science does not explain at all. That phenomenen x happens becasue of law y only says how it is functioning. but why are things not very different, running by this and not by any other law?

Why is there anything at all, instead of nothing? Here we leave the realm of science, and enter that of spirituality, inner discovery, meditative self-exploration. If it is possible for us humans to find a true answer, than I must conclude that it can only be had at the pörice of self-transcendence, and giving up the idea of separating "me" and "it/them". no subject, no object. but are we still human in the everyday-understanding of the term? Nietzsche called it the Übermenschen. He did not mean some type of superman with wonderpowers of mind and blitzes flashing from his eyes. He meant the human being that has understood the illusive nature of the ego and the ilusive nature of the difefrence between subject and object, and in this way stands above (=über) man by having left behind what it means to be this blind, misled, unknowing man. Or in buddhist terms, Nietzsche's Ubermensch is the enlightened man. Or in Christian mystic's terminology: man in unconditional, full unity with "God", in "unio mystica". In classic Sufism, the liberated mind of a truly free man is sometimes called "the son of all time", or "the son standing outside of all time". I think all these descriptions try to express one and the same thing.

I rule out none of that, nor do I rule out the opposites. I just act - not causally, but scientifically: I stay with the theories that at a given point of time makes best sense in putting the pieces of our knowledge into reltion to each other. I think it is reasonable to do so, instead of basing our civilisation in the furture on mere wild guesses and speculations. i also defend our right to conclude that oh so very often - we simply do not know the answers for sure.

Maybe it is like that, maybe not. we do not know, and i think science itself also can never know about the why's, as i explained above.

Yes, and i thank you for that. You set up some challanges to my thinking. as I have written some weeks ago, I have started to self-study a book- and intenret-based astronomy course. I currently run , or better: I crash into thoughts like here quite often. Astronomy is a very confronting science, since it forces oyu to deal with timespans and dimensions and exiostential factors that we usually do not spend time on to become aware of them. And these dimensions are such that the mere fact of your own existence can become both an intriguing and intimidating realisation. It has probably been the first science mankind developed, and it has been the most influential one on our civilisations' developement. It alaso always has been tightly linked to spiritual and cultic affairs, due to the object it deals with. and I think that is still so today, and with every other solid, natural science.

It's all a mystery that we are here.

My mother once summed these things up quite nicely, she said something like this: the pragmatic head wants to know "how?" so that it can do things. Our eyes want to see "what?" so that we can own things. And our hearts want to know "why?" so that we can make our peace with things in this life. Science, spirituality, mastering your ordinary life - to me it all must come and fall together, and in a way is just one. The more we are successful in acchieveing this, the more happy we may become. The more we fail in it or are hindred in acchieving this, the more unhappy, even fearful we become.

But to imagine the vast space, the void out there - is still a truly intimidating attempt.

But you have to admit that they made some pretty funny movies :yep:

And when life is bad a man could sit back and say "I need God. Where is God?" And there would be no more answer than in your version. What is easy or not easy isn't the question. The question is "What is true?" You don't have the precise answer any more than anyone else.

"There are no atheists in foxholes."

Heard it before. If that's the reason for belief then that belief is doomed already. The reason I'm not an atheist is that very question: "What if these people are right?"

But it's a false question and a pretence on your part to suggest that that's a good reason for faith. Have you ever asked that question concerning the Muslims? Jews? Buddhists? Hindus? Native Americans? Are you going to wonder on your deathbed "What if my cherished beliefs are wrong?"

Deathbed conversions may be true faith, or they may be cowardice. Only the person doing the dying knows the answer to that.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...BL__SS500_.jpg

Fair enough. However, I do hope that my previous points a least inspired looking at the situation from a different approach.

Truth be told that has rarely worked.

People are just bastard covered bastards with a bastard filling. The less excuses we have to kill eachother, the better.