Religion

  On 1/9/2014 at 1:22 AM, chenGOD said:

Ok but you do understand that these self-evident "good things" arose out of these fundamentally goofy structures right?

 

So maybe, just maybe, there is something to all this goofiness?

 

Anyways, knock yourself out wasting energy on hatred.

So, like, because the Golden Rule is a good advice, I should therefor believe things like Jesus rose from his grave and all that jazz?

And I don't waste energy on hatred. I just think there should be pressure applied to unfounded beliefs and faith because, well, that should be obvious actually.

imo reality makes goofstifarians of us all

  On 1/9/2014 at 1:22 AM, chenGOD said:

Ok but you do understand that these self-evident "good things" arose out of these fundamentally goofy structures right?

 

So maybe, just maybe, there is something to all this goofiness?

 

Anyways, knock yourself out wasting energy on hatred.

No they didn't, the fundamentally goofy structures arose from all of these self-evident "good things".

But just to cut to the heart of the matter here:

46% of Americans think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old.

So yes Chen, fuck Christianity, and fuck the goofy beliefs it propagates.

  On 1/9/2014 at 6:49 AM, Zeffolia said:

 

  On 1/9/2014 at 1:22 AM, chenGOD said:

 

Ok but you do understand that these self-evident "good things" arose out of these fundamentally goofy structures right?

 

So maybe, just maybe, there is something to all this goofiness?

 

Anyways, knock yourself out wasting energy on hatred.

No they didn't, the fundamentally goofy structures arose from all of these self-evident "good things".

I have to echo this, unless we're misinterpreting you here, chen. Organized religion often seems to me like a pattern of genuine love, fluff, and mechanisms for control of the people. It doesn't seem to get as popular unless the love-for-the-world hippie prophet is at the core of the structure, though.

  On 1/9/2014 at 9:23 AM, LimpyLoo said:

But just to cut to the heart of the matter here:

 

46% of Americans think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old.

 

So yes Chen, fuck Christianity, and fuck the goofy beliefs it propagates.

devil's advocate tho - how does that affect day to day interactions in any way whatsoever? I mean you can make an argument like "if they believe x they'll probably believe y", but when it comes down to 10k years vs 10bajillion years, it's a long arse-time either way.

  On 1/9/2014 at 8:26 PM, Cryptowen said:

 

  On 1/9/2014 at 9:23 AM, LimpyLoo said:

But just to cut to the heart of the matter here:

 

46% of Americans think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old.

 

So yes Chen, fuck Christianity, and fuck the goofy beliefs it propagates.

devil's advocate tho - how does that affect day to day interactions in any way whatsoever? I mean you can make an argument like "if they believe x they'll probably believe y", but when it comes down to 10k years vs 10bajillion years, it's a long arse-time either way.

 

This belief doesn't just exist by itself. It's not the incorrect belief in the age of the Earth that's troubling, it's the fact that people will believe something so glaringly wrong if authorities tell them to even though absolutely overwhelming evidence to the contrary exists

It's extremely troubling and indicates a complete lack of intelligence and critical thinking skills in the average American

  On 1/9/2014 at 8:26 PM, Cryptowen said:

 

  On 1/9/2014 at 9:23 AM, LimpyLoo said:

But just to cut to the heart of the matter here:

 

46% of Americans think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old.

 

So yes Chen, fuck Christianity, and fuck the goofy beliefs it propagates.

devil's advocate tho - how does that affect day to day interactions in any way whatsoever? I mean you can make an argument like "if they believe x they'll probably believe y", but when it comes down to 10k years vs 10bajillion years, it's a long arse-time either way.

 

Well 46% of Americans probably have a deep mistrust of science. These people vote for politicians, who make policies that affect all of us. They've tried to get 'intelligent design' taught in science classes. A handful of Texan folk get to determine what will be in all the textbooks for the entire country (I think the word 'dinosaur' was omitted from textbooks for a time). We've had presidents that think they get war orders straight from the lips of God. We have people that think 3-day old embryos (essentially a cluster of a few thousand cells) have a soul. Etc.

But honestly even if miraculously this believe was kept compartmentalized in their brain and didn't affect anything (which is simply impossible), half of the country has still been brainwashed. And there's no accounting for how beliefs affect other beliefs and how people behave in this world, it's chaos theory stuff. But what is known is that people navigate this world using the model of the world that they have in their brain, so there's no end to what one way-off-target belief about the world can do.

Americans believe wacky shit that no religion ever mentioned, as well.

http://www.livescience.com/16748-americans-beliefs-paranormal-infographic.html

It's pretty sad, but we're just an ignorant culture.

For more evidence, here and here and here. (sadlol)

And don't even get me started on who's in charge of textbooks in this country. *raeg*

Yeah my mother is actually a "spiritualist." It was strange to see the cognitive dissonance in play when her sister died recently. She was crushed.

Whereas, someone who actually deep down believed that death was just a transition (and furthermore we can communicate with the dead) wouldn't be so bothered. So there is a part of me that thinks that some crazy beliefs are sort-of co-existing with contradictory rational beliefs in people, and when reality forces someone's hand, the rational belief wins out.

And I think I can provide ample evidence for this idea.

I think it's natural to feel pangs of regret even if you believe in an afterlife; it's a sad thing. I mean I don't know how your mom reacted exactly (when my mom's sister died from breast cancer, all of her immediate family was torn up even though they're religious) but I've had a few friends die and even if I did think they were still around somewhere in some form, I'd be sad that I couldn't hang out with them or get their opinion ever again.

Anyway this is a particularly interesting article (from the author of the book "Why People Believe Weird Things") I just found between posts there:

  Quote

We recently published an article in Skeptic (Vol. 9, No. 3) revealing the results of a study that found no correlation between science knowledge (facts about the world) and paranormal beliefs. The authors, W. Richard Walker, Steven J. Hoekstra and Rodney J. Vogl, concluded: “Students that scored well on these [science knowledge] tests were no more or less skeptical of pseudoscientific claims than students that scored very poorly. Apparently, the students were not able to apply their scientific knowledge to evaluate these pseudoscientific claims. We suggest that this inability stems in part from the way that science is traditionally presented to students: Students are taught what to think but not how to think.”

 

http://www.michaelshermer.com/2002/09/smart-people-believe-weird-things/

thx, textbooks

coupla points

1. I do think many spiritual/paranormal/conspiracy beliefs speak to underlying insecurities about life (ie, fear of death, boredom, desire to think someone out there is calling the shots). I feel the same way about certain staunchly pro science people (specifically the ones with a driving desire to come up with unified theories of everything).

2. Spirituality & occultism & science can be great fun though, at times reaching truly beautiful places in their attempts to understand the human experience.

3. I've found very little correlation between a person's beliefs about the nature of reality (science vs magic) and how enjoyable that person is to be around, or how smart I perceive them to be.

Oh and just to clarify: I don't believe that about everyone who believes crazy shit. I just think those numbers are probably slightly high when it comes to what people really believe believe.

Well, my mother reacted exactly like someone who believed that her sister no longer existed (in the same way she didn't exist 100 years before she was born). Someone who believed that she had simply slipped behind some curtain and could still whisper through to people on this side of the curtain...well, a person who believed that (I think) would be going around to all the people at the funeral insisting "no no she's still alive she's just transitioned to another place. In fact, I can still talk to her if I want."

  On 1/9/2014 at 10:48 PM, Cryptowen said:

coupla points

 

1. I do think many spiritual/paranormal/conspiracy beliefs speak to underlying insecurities about life (ie, fear of death, boredom, desire to think someone out there is calling the shots). I feel the same way about certain staunchly pro science people (specifically the ones with a driving desire to come up with unified theories of everything).

 

2. Spirituality & occultism & science can be great fun though, at times reaching truly beautiful places in their attempts to understand the human experience.

 

3. I've found very little correlation between a person's beliefs about the nature of reality (science vs magic) and how enjoyable that person is to be around, or how smart I perceive them to be.

1) Scientific theories are descriptive not prescriptive. A unified theory would just describe how things go about, not that there is ONE sort-of motor driving all the behavior of the universe.

2) I agree (sort-of, with certain caveats)

3) I agree (sort-of, with certain caveats)...On a strictly interpersonal level, I don't care what people think or believe, and someone's beliefs wouldn't even really affect whether I like them or would be friends with them or not...many of my friends believe things I don't, things I think are spooky or goofy...the only beliefs that would be problematic are beliefs that would directly threaten my basic well-being...

  On 1/9/2014 at 9:23 AM, LimpyLoo said:

But just to cut to the heart of the matter here:

 

46% of Americans think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old.

 

So yes Chen, fuck Christianity, and fuck the goofy beliefs it propagates.

So here we have Limpy committing the fallacy of composition, why not call him out on this Zeff?

  On 1/9/2014 at 4:02 PM, A/D said:

 

  On 1/9/2014 at 6:49 AM, Zeffolia said:

 

  On 1/9/2014 at 1:22 AM, chenGOD said:

Ok but you do understand that these self-evident "good things" arose out of these fundamentally goofy structures right?

 

So maybe, just maybe, there is something to all this goofiness?

 

Anyways, knock yourself out wasting energy on hatred.

No they didn't, the fundamentally goofy structures arose from all of these self-evident "good things".

I have to echo this, unless we're misinterpreting you here, chen. Organized religion often seems to me like a pattern of genuine love, fluff, and mechanisms for control of the people. It doesn't seem to get as popular unless the love-for-the-world hippie prophet is at the core of the structure, though.

 

How did these "self-evident" ideas propagate?

  On 1/9/2014 at 11:19 PM, chenGOD said:

 

  On 1/9/2014 at 9:23 AM, LimpyLoo said:

But just to cut to the heart of the matter here:

 

46% of Americans think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old.

 

So yes Chen, fuck Christianity, and fuck the goofy beliefs it propagates.

 

So here we have Limpy committing the fallacy of composition, why not call him out on this Zeff?

 

 

 

Of course not every Christian believes this. Didn't say that. Of course not every single thing that comes out of Christianity is bad. Didn't say that.

So no, I've not committed the fallacy of composition. If you said that Jeffrey Dahmer was a bad person I wouldn't go "Ah, see, you've committed the fallacy of composition. Not everything he did was bad."

This 46% figure is on Christianity, and to say otherwise would be to commit the True Scotsman fallacy.

  On 1/9/2014 at 11:19 PM, chenGOD said:

 

  On 1/9/2014 at 9:23 AM, LimpyLoo said:

But just to cut to the heart of the matter here:

 

46% of Americans think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old.

 

So yes Chen, fuck Christianity, and fuck the goofy beliefs it propagates.

 

So here we have Limpy committing the fallacy of composition, why not call him out on this Zeff?

 

  On 1/9/2014 at 4:02 PM, A/D said:

 

  On 1/9/2014 at 6:49 AM, Zeffolia said:

 

  On 1/9/2014 at 1:22 AM, chenGOD said:

Ok but you do understand that these self-evident "good things" arose out of these fundamentally goofy structures right?

 

So maybe, just maybe, there is something to all this goofiness?

 

Anyways, knock yourself out wasting energy on hatred.

No they didn't, the fundamentally goofy structures arose from all of these self-evident "good things".

I have to echo this, unless we're misinterpreting you here, chen. Organized religion often seems to me like a pattern of genuine love, fluff, and mechanisms for control of the people. It doesn't seem to get as popular unless the love-for-the-world hippie prophet is at the core of the structure, though.

 

 

How did these "self-evident" ideas propagate?

 

I don't see how Limpy is committing the fallacy of composition there at all

And they didn't propagate they are innate to human biology. Look up mirror neurons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron

mirror neurons are interesting and clearly related to empathy, but the 'self evident' (not my words) religious moral claims this thread has been discussing are not innate to human biology and you are treading on a strange physiological moral absolutism here.

  On 1/10/2014 at 12:54 AM, luke viia said:

mirror neurons are interesting and clearly related to empathy, but the 'self evident' (not my words) religious moral claims this thread has been discussing are not innate to human biology and you are treading on a strange physiological moral absolutism here.

Obviously not all religious moral claims are innately biological but the core ones that all religious moral codes sprout off of seem to be from what I can see. The ones like mixed fibres in clothing is clearly bs and has no firm grounding in rationality whatsoever. But others do

The ones that seem biologically innate revolve around

-Treating others the way you wish to be treated

-Not doing things to harm the overall wellbeing of your community group (murder, theft rape, etc)

Relates to the "Green-Beard Effect" as well in an evolutionary sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green-beard_effect

From 46% of Americans believe the earth is >10,000 years old to "fuck all of Christianity" and you can't see how he's committing the fallacy of composition?

Lol talk about a lack of critical thinking.

Let's put it this way. I agree there have been many wrongs committed in the name of Christianity (insert major religion here).

Can you agree that some good has come out of Christianity?

  On 1/10/2014 at 2:12 AM, chenGOD said:

From 46% of Americans believe the earth is >10,000 years old to "fuck all of Christianity" and you can't see how he's committing the fallacy of composition? Lol talk about a lack of critical thinking. Let's put it this way. I agree there have been many wrongs committed in the name of Christianity (insert major religion here). Can you agree that some good has come out of Christianity?

Yes of course I can agree that some good has come out of Christianity. But fuck all of Christianity.

Some good comes out of war. But fuck all of war, of course.

  On 1/10/2014 at 2:12 AM, chenGOD said:

From 46% of Americans believe the earth is >10,000 years old to "fuck all of Christianity" and you can't see how he's committing the fallacy of composition? Lol talk about a lack of critical thinking. Let's put it this way. I agree there have been many wrongs committed in the name of Christianity (insert major religion here). Can you agree that some good has come out of Christianity?

No good has come out of Christianity that couldn't or wouldn't have naturally came about without it

i think all chen is trying to communicate is that there is nuance and ritual involved with religion that produces a different result than simply "this set of morals is right because god says so". and it is fairly annoying to cherrypick buddhist beliefs. i've been around enough freshman college students who decide to be buddhist for a month thinking that means they read some dt suzuki and smoke up and enlightenment will come. it's so common among secular americans to "go east" with personal philosophies and transform actual, rigorous religious practice into a kind of new age mall philosophy. just read the tao of pooh or something, why bother with pretending to study religion?

whatever

I regret admitting that I read a handful of Buddhism-related books

I guess I shouldn't have read them

nor retained the useful information I gleaned from them

because now I'm a pretentious phony

  On 1/10/2014 at 2:24 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

Yes of course I can agree that some good has come out of Christianity. But fuck all of Christianity.

 

This is about the only statement I can somewhat agree with in this thread. Spent 20+ pages in the past arguing over it, sorta past that now.