God vs Science

[Oddish On Fire]

Goddamnit DK. Responding to your posts takes time, effort, and a lot of quoting from multiple sources, not to mention taking the time to find your old posts >:(

Atheists as a category would have to have morals before individuals could decide that morality they made up based on how their "conscience" was feeling that day was right and proper.

You say that atheists as a category have to all maintain high morals, yet the same statement is not true for Christianity? You have a MASSIVE double-standard towards atheism. You expect every atheist to be the next Jesus, yet don't Christian's commit crimes everyday?

If you believe in nothing you will fall for anything. The baseline "conscience" of a modern American atheist is founded in the principles established by Founders who were at the very least theistic, given direct references to inalienable rights coming from a Creator. Atheism is antithetical to this premise, and the atheist's freedom to live in ignorance, hedonism, and self-aggrandizement is secured only by better men.

What the fuck was this rant? You're saying that because Christian's created the document securing our freedom, we are hypocrites for not being Christian? This is odd considering that many of our founding fathers were actually deists. Also, what the hell does hedonism have to do with atheism?

Hedonism is a school of philosophy which argues that pleasure has an ultimate importance and is the most important pursuit of humanity.

Atheism can be either the rejection of theism, or the position that deities do not exist. In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities.

Am I missing the link here between hedonism and atheism? Perhaps someone forgot to add "Oh, and atheists are a bunch of pleasure seeking assholes."

The mere concept of a creator changed history, and has its own power and influence separate from any particular consequence of what a person interprets that creator to be. The mere belief in God has overwhelming power, strengthening the will of believers.

When someone came up with the idea that the world was flat, I bet that also influced people and strengthened their will to not sail to far away from their homeland. Yet, we now know that the world is round, and we therefore reject the idea that the world is flat. Just because an idea paved the ground for further ideas does not mean that we cannot reject it later. When a theory is proven wrong, it is completely rational to reject it, as I have with Christianity. It has done a great job instilling (some) good values into the hearts of children, but can't Disney movies and Santa Clause do the exact same thing? I may be an atheist, but let me assure you that I will imprint morality into my children via indoctrination. The only difference will be this; I won't lie to them.

Atheism is at a disadvantage because it has no way of justifying why its proponents should have any rights at all. Mere Humanity? We're just another ape, and Darwinism is a bitch. Atheism is the ungrateful bastard child of society who, in its smugness, is always willing to put down the faithful as superstitious throwbacks. Its proponents put up strawmen just as flimsy and purposeless as Atheism's own fungible morality like The Flying Spaghetti Monster. No one is easier led than an atheist. Tell them anything that jives with their conscience that day (the earth is overpopulated, support euthanasia! Stem-cells are guaranteed to heal the sick, opposing funding for them is anti-science!) and they'll believe it without criticism. They have no backup for when their conscience is conflicted, and no rationale for moral behavior that isn't previously supplied by a theist. It is impossible for an atheist to say killing in agression, pedophillia, rape, assault, and arson are intrinsically wrong simply because of their conscience. A conscience needs to be formed before any statements of a moral nature can be made.

This is the reason that people should have rights; Everyone having equal rights benefits me because I too obtain them. Not only that, but it reduces strife in the form of riots. Plus, I find discrimination wrong. I plan on living a moral life without God, and I'm doing a damn good job. Sure, I may do drugs, party, and have sex, but so long as I'm not hurting anyone else with my actions, all of that is completely moral. And if you want to get into your whole "Atheists cannot possibly have morals without Christian direction," LMPL already kicked your ass thanks to an earlier quote from you.

As a human being I have both dominion over and stewardship of them. "Lower" is indeed accurate. They are not even capable of pondering their status in relation to other creatures, thus your defense of creatures who can neither comprehend or appreciate it, while laudable in a metaphysical sense, is pointless. Your entire field of work is devoted to studying creatures incapable of studying you with the same level of explicit motivation with directed purpose. You are superior.

I will greatly appreciate the irony if you accuse me of specieism.

So, if animals are lower than humans and are capable of compassion and morality, then why can't mankind, the "superior" species, also convey morality without God's direction? Your hypocrisy knows no bounds, DK.

And did you really call atheists easily led? I'm sorry DK, but aren't you the one who believes that God is 3 beings at once, yet 1 being, necromancy is possible, living in a whales mouth is feasible, and a male and female of every species on Earth is able to fit on a boat built by one family? If you didn't rant so fucking much, you might actually bring up great points or discussion starters in threads like these.

Then, you even go as far as connecting liberal ideas with atheism! The large majority of the atheists I know agree with you 100% on every issue except for the social ones. Stop connecting things that are in no way related unless you want to provide me some fucking statistics.

Maybe for someone who gets their morals from the cafeteria of moral teaching can subscribe to your notion, but for most people their religion is the morals they grew up with and were instructed in. Humanity is a blank slate from birth and must be educated to do right. A child without moral instruction eventually becomes a deviant and then a criminal because they do not know better. Now maybe some adults seeking a different religious institution find a church to suit their morals, but thankfully they've already been instructed with a baseline. A baseline that looks surprisingly similar to The Ten Commandments. Wonder how that happened.

Regarding morals, your quote plus LMPL's post already proved you wrong, so need to cover that. However, are you comparing the constitution or the bill of rights to the ten commandments? A base line that looks suprisingly similar to the international covenants?
http://www.geocities.com/spenta_mainyu_2/oldtest5.htm
(scroll down until you find "The History of Israel")
Wonder how that happened.

God and Science are not opposed to each other, they simply cover different subject matter. Morality and Atheism, however, are opposed. The former mandates a system of behavioral instruction while the latter is the absence of such instruction. "Atheist Morality" is an oxymoron. They have no clue why they believe anything other than the voice in their head, and have the arrogance to believe that they are more intelligent and capable than the faithful.

They cover different subject matter? Science directly opposes the Bible with evolution. Unless you stray from the Bible and move to interpretations, they in no way agree with eachother. Regarding morality and atheism, atheism opposes Christian morality, not morality in the general sense of the word. I don't see why you are under the impression that the Bible is an unchanging book of morals. It is in fact constantly changing due to translations and interpretations, which is why different sects of Christianity exist in order to interpret the Bible in the way that is convinient to them. Your supposed morals are just as unstable as ours, only the voice in my head is sure as hell more reliable than a 2000 year old text. I'll take my hedonistic morals over your faith based insecurities any day.

Morality defined by culture and religion is not true morality. It is impure morality, muddled with hate, insecurity, and metaphors. The kind of morality I abide by is this; "If I do something to intentionally hurt someone, or I do something illogical, it is wrong." This is all I need to be a productive citizen, and I pity anyone who requires the use of the Bible to cement their morals. The simple truth is this; Although a strong base contributes to your morals, the structure matters to.

(I hope Jrrrrrrr didn't beat me some of these points)

 

[Xia]

Sure, even though I cannot see how anyone can attempt to sway this argument one way or the other. Remember, though, that nothing I say reflects anyone else, it's how I see it.

The part I had a problem with was the (tag riddled) breakdown of the Ten Commandments and the punishments you receive for breaking them. God is understanding, and grants pardons (iirc one of the deciples was first a killer of Jews).

The way I see it, there is a heirarchy of laws that must be upheld for you to be seen as pure enough for heaven. The laws below aren't as huge, and can therefore be overcome to gain admittance to heaven. Here's how I see God's checklist:

-You must be sorry for your sins
-You must do what you feel is morally right
-The Ten Commandments
-Laws of your home country


and in a seperate section:

-The Golden Rule (treat others...)

As you can see, the one surefire way to be granted admittance to heaven is to repent. Repentance covers breaking an Commandment, and law you break, ect. Morality comes in because rules cannot account for every situation. If you're starving and need to get food for your family and you steal it, God will understand, so long as you really had no other choice. The Ten Commandments are the basic laws that all of humanity must follow, but anyone in their right mind knows there is always exceptions to laws, no matter how high. Finally, home laws must be followed for society and peace to exist, although the majority of them are covered under the Ten Commandments. The golden rule is a standard God created for all of humanity, not just the religious. Hence, it is seperate and accepted by all religions (bar extremists).

That's my view on the matter jrrrrrrr, for what it's worth; last I checked it was only two cents. It ain't gonna sway anyone and it ain't gonna solve the argument, but that's how I paint my picture.

 

[Scoopapa]

Atheists as a category would have to have morals before individuals could decide that morality they made up based on how their "conscience" was feeling that day was right and proper.

So I think I figured out what you're trying to say here, but it's so poorly worded that I think I should restate it before trying to give a rebuttal, lest I misinterperet. You are saying that in order for atheists to verify that our morals are "right and proper", we would need God-given morals against which to compare them. This is essentially a clever restatement of the argument from incredulity that "humans couldn't possibly have morals unless God gave them to them". Saying that we would need morals already before we could derive them from our own human experience is just assuming your conclusion that we can't derive morals from our own human experience. You haven't added anything to the argument, you've just rephrased them so as to make the same fallacious argument seem to work in a different light.

You also assume that there is some absolute against which morals can be compared - which anyone who has honestly pondered morality has come to realize is not true in any but the simplest of cases. I'm sure you know this too on some level, but you manage to convince yourself that your choices reflect the bible, even if the bible doesn't cover what to do in your particular situation. Moral humans do the best we can to figure out the right thing to do. This is the most anybody can do. As I showed earlier, even evangelists like Ray Comfort have to admit that they wouldn't believe the Bible if it didn't agree morally with what they already thought. The best you can do is try to make the case that we just have all of God's morals in us without needing to read the Bible - of course this would make writing said Bible fairly unnecessary, not to mention you'd lose your ability to claim that atheists are immoral if they don't believe in a religion.

Sorry for all the quotes but this next part I really have to do sentence by sentence.

If you believe in nothing you will fall for anything.

Really? It would seem to me if you believe in nothing you won't fall for anything. Thats where the whole not believing part comes in. That's why the majority of people who are scientists (a.k.a. who check the validity of statements and therefore don't "fall for them") believe in nothing - and this majority increases in more prestigious circles. Theists are the ones who have "fallen for it". This statement is a great example of rhetorical nonsense.

The baseline "conscience" of a modern American atheist is founded in the principles established by Founders who were at the very least theistic, given direct references to inalienable rights coming from a Creator.

So now you've denied the only possible argument that you could have had for how God gives us our morals, since it's been shown that Biblical morals pass through the filter of your own self-decided morals before you accept them. Christian morals aren't necessarily bad morals (especially if you look at the morals of pick-and-choose Christians who ignore the more brutal parts of the Bible). Of course correlation does not imply causality, and the fact that most members of this country have similar morals doesn't mean that one group copied off of the other. How's this for a correlation: citizens of different first world countries follow basic human morals about the same, and citizens of third world countries follow those same morals much less. The difference between how people of different religions treat each other is arguably not there, while the difference between how people of different wealth treat each other is quite stark.

As for the numerous direct references to God, they sure aren't in the constitution. There are a couple in the Declaration of Independence, which of course isn't the basis of our government. Even what they say in the DoI is so neutral that it could just be Deist (which many of the founding fathers were), as it is tantamount to saying that humanity due the nature of it's existence has certain rights that should not be violated, with the only religious part suggesting as to the nature of that existence.

Atheism is antithetical to this premise, and the atheist's freedom to live in ignorance, hedonism, and self-aggrandizement is secured only by better men.

It just wouldn't do to just make a post without some arrogant, unsubstantiated, and utterly hypocritical comment, now would it?

Atheism is at a disadvantage because it has no way of justifying why its proponents should have any rights at all. Mere Humanity? We're just another ape, and Darwinism is a bitch. Atheism is the ungrateful bastard child of society who, in its smugness, is always willing to put down the faithful as superstitious throwbacks. Its proponents put up strawmen just as flimsy and purposeless as Atheism's own fungible morality like The Flying Spaghetti Monster. No one is easier led than an atheist. Tell them anything that jives with their conscience that day (the earth is overpopulated, support euthanasia! Stem-cells are guaranteed to heal the sick, opposing funding for them is anti-science!) and they'll believe it without criticism.

So you're having a lot of fun running with the implications of how atheists don't have any morals, and trying to further justify it by saying you don't understand how people could act in a moral way if it isn't a glorious, God-given task. I want to act like a moral person even if I'm not the favorite child of an all-powerful mega being... this is true morality. It is based on empathy. Acting a certain way because you fear punishment is not moral, it is selfish. The fact that you think that people who don't fear this punishment will kill, steal, and rape for the fun of it almost implies that harming people should be fun if God wasn't so against it.

The hypocrisy of this particular part of your post is palpable. You say that, "the earth is overpopulated, support euthanasia! Stem-cells are guaranteed to heal the sick, opposing funding for them is anti-science!" when just earlier you criticize atheists for always using straw man arguments. I know you don't believe any of this crap, so why do you post it? Right, because it makes it look like you're intellectually superior to a group of people, even if you made the arguments you are bashing up.

They have no backup for when their conscience is conflicted, and no rationale for moral behavior that isn't previously supplied by a theist. It is impossible for an atheist to say killing in agression, pedophillia, rape, assault, and arson are intrinsically wrong simply because of their conscience. A conscience needs to be formed before any statements of a moral nature can be made.

You're right, real moral people have to take ethical issues seriously, we don't just run away to a thousands of years old book to tell us how to behave. Killing in aggression, pedophillia, rape, assault, and arson are intrinsically wrong. I just did the impossible. It's a miracle bitches!!! I know these things are wrong because I know how I would feel if they were done to me, and I don't want to cause suffering in anybody.

Maybe for someone who gets their morals from the cafeteria of moral teaching can subscribe to your notion, but for most people their religion is the morals they grew up with and were instructed in. Humanity is a blank slate from birth and must be educated to do right. A child without moral instruction eventually becomes a deviant and then a criminal because they do not know better. Now maybe some adults seeking a different religious institution find a church to suit their morals, but thankfully they've already been instructed with a baseline. A baseline that looks surprisingly similar to The Ten Commandments. Wonder how that happened.

Well, if people aren't born with their morals completely in adult form, it must mean only Christianity can give them morals right? Of course people learn their morals. It's a long, arduous process based on our experiences. Some atheists become bad people. Some Christians become bad people. Parents probably have a lot to do with it, as do peers, as does the quality of life the person is given by the previous generation. People can be told morals, but they can't learn them without experience.

This "baseline" looks surprisingly similar to the Ten Commandments, in some respects. If you're talking about don't kill, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't bear false witness, and don't covet, then "baseline American consciousness" is right along with them. Of course we heathens don't care about crap like "make sure you only worship me", which is first in the commandments. But still they are remarkably similar on the whole. How can that be? It's because the Ten Commandments were written by humans who had lived a while, figured these things out, and decided to pass them on. There's nothing to be incredulous about. A bunch of humans in one place and time had similar morals to those in another place and time. Imagine that.

God and Science are not opposed to each other, they simply cover different subject matter. Morality and Atheism, however, are opposed. The former mandates a system of behavioral instruction while the latter is the absence of such instruction. "Atheist Morality" is an oxymoron. They have no clue why they believe anything other than the voice in their head, and have the arrogance to believe that they are more intelligent and capable than the faithful.

The weakest form of Theism does not make contradictory claims to science, because it does not make any specific claims about what is contained in the universe. If you wan't to say a guy lived inside a giant fish for three days, that is contradictory to science. Also, believing something without any evidence is not allowed in science. Saying you know something with 100% certainty is not allowed in science. Religion and science are opposed in this manner. Atheism and morality are not opposed unless you define morality as "fearing what God will do to you if you don't do what he says".

Atheism is weak because it does not temper the will nor invigorate the spirit. It is tolerated by a civilized people in spite of its uselessness.

Atheists understand the virtue of willpower as much as anyone else. If you can give some attempt to define "invigorate the spirit" then I can try to address that. Religion is not the only place one can find profundity, and the profundity of an idea is completely independent of it's truth value.

It would also be a system which denies free will, therefore God would not be saving humans at all, but rather bipedal organic automatons.

Actually, determinism denies free will. Atheism is not determinism. I think that's all I need to say about that.

You may notice that I left some sentences from the quotes. Lest I be accused of cowardice, I want to point out that everything I left out was either redundant, specifically directed at someone else, or in one case, something I agreed with.

 

[Brain]

Deck Knight, you are not an atheist and judging by the drivel you post, you have no idea how atheists think. Perhaps you need to believe in God in order to have morals. We don't. We are perfectly aware of what morality is supposed to achieve and we have morals because we'd rather live in a civilized world than in a cesspool. We think that most moral guidelines are perfectly obvious, that their efficiency is easy to demonstrate and that tying them to religion is an insult to our intelligence. We can explain morality in a perfectly satisfactory manner without resorting to a God. We think that religion is nothing more than a useful tool to spread and reinforce morality, that it's only good for those who need it and that it is a double edged sword in that it can seriously impede progress when it gets out of sync with an ever changing world.

I repeat: you are not an atheist. You have not the slightest clue how anyone but the most misguided atheists on Earth think. Please don't pretend that you do. You try to think like an atheist through your own backward biases, coming to outlandish conclusions which no actual atheist comes to. (Note that I am not saying you need to be an atheist to understand how atheists think. I am only saying that you, specifically, fail miserably at it).

"A baseline that looks surprisingly similar to The Ten Commandments"? Oh, please. Commandments 1 to 4 are religion-specific and disposable. The fifth (honor your father and mother) should at least be given, and be conditioned to, the converse: "honor your children", which is an important moral rule that is missing from the ten commandments (maybe it's somewhere else?). The sixth commandment (do not kill) is fucking obvious. The seventh (no adultery) is also obvious - nobody likes it when their spouse cheats on them, they don't need the fucking Bible to tell them that. The eight (do not steal) is fucking obvious - society doesn't work well without a concept of property does it? The ninth (do not lie) is obvious as well - society works better when its elements are trustworthy - note, however, that lying can be positive or neutral in so many situations that making a commandment out of it lacks proper nuance. As for the tenth? Why the fuck can't I envy what others have? As long as I don't act on it, I don't see why I can't have dirty thoughts involving my neighbor's wife.

Now, what's missing?
11) Do not inflict pain upon anyone (are the commandments really missing this? wtf)
12) Do not infringe upon the will of others (covers rape - I don't see it covered in the 10)
13) Do not be disrespectful of others (covers insults).
14) Stay true to your word (I do not think commandment 9 sufficiently covers this).
15) Do not indulge in positive or negative discrimination (covers sexism, racism and nepotism among others)
16) Do not censor knowledge, for anyone should be allowed to make their own mind about anything using the full extent of knowledge available.

So the way I see it, the ten commandments have 4 irrelevant rules, 4 obvious rules, one incomplete rule and one misplaced rule. It is missing at least 6 rules (couldn't be bothered thinking up any more than that). Granted, some of these missing rules might be covered elsewhere in the Bible. But it's rather obvious that the ten commandments are a joke and could not serve as a baseline to any modern morality as you suggest.

No matter the origin of morals they can still be divinely inspired. Who is to say God didn't instill morals in the evolutionary process?

It makes sense for the evolutionary process to produce morals, though. Basic empathy is a trait which would be relatively easy to evolve - you just need to transpose your own emotions on similar organisms that you see as if you were them. This is definitely a positive ability since it allows you to predict to some extent how others will react to stimuli. Now, if you are harmed by another organism, it is definitely positive for you to reciprocate since it can help you to eliminate the threat (assuming the threat can even be countered, of course). Eventually, an organism with empathy will "understand" that harming others will result in harm to themselves. Of course, he might still pick on weaker organisms, but, it stands to reason that an organism who sees a second organism bully a third organism may understand that there exists a probability that he will be the next target, hence providing a very clear incentive for him to help the victim fight off the aggressor, who in turn will understand that picking on weak targets will also result in harm being done to themselves. Eventually, all of these positive behaviors will inscribe themselves in the species, they will be generalized and many classes of behavior such as killing or stealing will be ostracized regardless of circumstances.

On the other end of the spectrum, if an organism does you a favor, it is evidently a positive behavior for you to reciprocate, because this makes it more likely that the other organism will survive longer and do you more favors. In turn this reinforces the behavior of doing favors to others. Furthermore, if X sees Y do a favor to Z, X will be motivated to do favors to Y in order to get favors in return, meaning that there is an incentive for anyone to do favors to anyone, even in the absence of favors being returned. Individual exchanges of favors will be progressively generalized into societal exchanges of favors (payback becomes implicit).

Also note that not harming relatives and/or doing favors to relatives will often be selected for since the genes that would lead to this behavior will reinforce themselves that way. This makes it even easier for morality to arise naturally since doing favors to X will be understood by relatives as if they were favors to them. Note that these behaviors do not have to be conscious and that they do not have to be rational either. Organisms will gain them because they give them an advantage over others. Perhaps it does not seem to make sense that elephants would save antelopes, but perhaps there is indeed (or there was) a sort of symbiosis between the two species, or between elephant and many other species. It is also plausible that their behavior is a combination of empathy and a capacity for generalization: both positive qualities which can be combined to form new behavior.

So basically, it is very plausible that evolutionary processes would lead to a natural implementation of the Golden rule, from which most of our morality is derived anyway.

So I must ask: why the hell would God instill morals in a process which, all by itself, is perfectly capable of producing moral organisms? What's the point?

 

[Yuelia]

Quite frankly, I'm too tired to write a complete response to your entire post, Deck Knight, especially as much of it would probably have already been said, but this...

God and Science are not opposed to each other, they simply cover different subject matter. Morality and Atheism, however, are opposed. The former mandates a system of behavioral instruction while the latter is the absence of such instruction. "Atheist Morality" is an oxymoron. They have no clue why they believe anything other than the voice in their head, and have the arrogance to believe that they are more intelligent and capable than the faithful.

...is so stupid that I'm planning on getting some part of it into my sig. And when my sig is explicitly "the stupidest thing I've ever heard or read", that's pretty damn bad.

My response to the above is: first, according to Christian belief, how does one know God? What God has done, and what sort of being God is? Through the Bible. It is "God's word". Even putting aside the evolution (non-)issue for a bit, the Bible contradicts modern scientific knowledge in countless ways. For example:

- Revelation 7:1: After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.

- 1 Chronicles 16:30
He [God] has fixed the earth firm, immovable.

Emphasis added. Obviously, we know that Earth is round and moves around the sun. And in case you think those were mistranslated or something, more quotes along those lines can be found here. Thus, God and science are opposed to each other.

Beyond even that, their goals are directly opposite. To follow God is to follow laws created thousands of years ago, which (allegedly) never change. Science, on the other hand, is continually changing itself in response to new information. Those most respected in science are those who change it the most, whereas those most respected in religion are those who offer reasons to continue the old ways.

All that and I haven't even started on the main reason I consider this part of that post to be the stupidest thing I have ever seen. You claim that "[Morality] mandates a system of behavioral instruction while [atheism] is the absence of such instruction." First, if we were to replace the word "morality" in the above statement with the word "theism" (or religion, whatever) it would make a lot more sense. Morality is something we decide for ourselves. We decide it based on what we believe will do the most good. For ourselves, for our friends, for our family, perhaps even for that stranger as an act of goodwill. Yes, goodwill is possible outside of religion once we recognize it as its own reward.

Is it fine to lie to someone who is suicidal, thus breaking one of the Ten Commandments, to keep them alive? I say that not only is that acceptable, the reverse would be unacceptable. That is my morality (part of it, anyway). You might think differently. Assuming you have a good reason for doing so, that is also fine. Thus although atheists may lack a system of behavioral instruction from the outside, a healthy atheist can form their own moral code which can easily surpass the Ten Commandments, which are quite the poor moral code for the reasons jrrrrrrr and Brain mentioned - even more so when they are considered absolute.

I believe that what religion gives us is a code of obedience (which is not the same thing as morality). If your God were to tell you to steal and kill, would you? Let's ask the Muslims in the Middle East. It's the same God, isn't it? Or do you claim that this is irrelevant because they follow a different faith, and not the true faith? Fine, then let's ask the Crusaders. So which is actually an oxymoron? Atheist morality, or religious morality?

You also claim that "[Atheists] have no clue why they believe anything other than the voice in their head, and have the arrogance to believe that they are more intelligent and capable than the faithful". Besides the first half of this statement being completely wrong for reasons already stated, this statement shows your complete arrogance and thus your hypocrisy. Don't presume to know how an entire group of people think. When you learn someone is an atheist, the ONLY thing this tells you for sure is that they do not believe in a god. Not all atheists are arrogant. Not all atheists are ignorant. Not all atheists are liberal. You can put pretty much any adjective after "Not all atheists are" and it would work.

I'd go on, but I'm getting tired and need to adjust my sig as mentioned before going to bed.

 

[Ascalon]

Most of the issues here have already been covered, so I will be brief on the two assertions that irk me most.

Firstly, Science and religion are opposed to each other. Not by accident, not in certain cases, not even in the case of your particular God, but by definition.

Science is about the open-minded exploration of the functions of the world, the creation of logical hypotheses, and testing them empirically. Conclusions are based on the results of these tests.

Conversely, an adherant to a religion holds that the world functions according the the decrees of his or her religion, as interpreted by himself from a religious work, an over-active imagination, or some religious authority figure.

Pick one or the other. The cannot function together.

Secondly, the idea that atheism and morality are opposed is quite ludicrous, as well as the rather short-sighted assertion that atheism = mindless hedonism.

Morality is an answer to the question "what should I do with the influence I have on my surroundings". Numberous answers to this question have been suggested.

Without the interference of a god, this question can be anwered in a number of ways, such as maximising happiness and minimising pain. Hedonism is only one of these options, and is still a morality.

Theism, or more precisely, the following of a god (I forget the term), does not provide a single satisfactory answer. However, it does demand that the following of that religion's commandments is the conclusion. The most common answers are "God's commandments are good, God defines morality by definition", which is entirely unsupported by anything at all, and "obeying God means you get rewarded", which is pure self intest.

So in fact, following God equates to self interest more often then not, while non-theistic morality allows more interesting and valid moral options to be explored.

My abandonement of God was based heavily on the fact that obeying Him is morally unjustifiable, so be very careful when you assert that non-belief in a god implies lack of morality. I don't even consider myself an atheist - my morallity is imcompatible with obedience to a god.

 

[Chileno4Live]

Well i just want to say something if i may without getting flamed so hard..

I'm catholic myself, however, i'm not extreme. My mother, my grandma, my whole family from my mothers side is catholic, however we all do not go to church. I think you should believe im something your own way, i do not go to church but i did do bible studies and all so yeah lol. (i know this is irrelevant but it's part of my point.)

What i'm trying to tell, people believe what they want to believe, and how they do it. This huge topic isn't going to make people feel any better and i think it's only going to turn into hate. Now i know im gonna get flamed so hard. My point: If people believe in god, they do. If people believe in science, they do. I don't really want to get into this discussion since i think it's pointless, but i just want to tell my opinion about this.

(Btw, for the people who think i'm not worth being catholic because i don't go to church: They ask money for a catholic church here, would you go there? No. I don't think i should go to the church while i get study at home.)

 

[Agape]

- 1 Chronicles 16:30
He [God] has fixed the earth firm, immovable.

I'll just quickly counter that.

NIV puts the "immovable" as "cannot be moved".

If we see the whole verse (this is a poem/song), which is:
Tremble before [God], all the earth!
The world is firmly established; it
cannot be moved

Therefore we see, that the verse implies, that "all the earth", which is the living things on earth, cannot move the earth itself. It's not referring to cosmic forces.

 

[akuchi]

I dunno. DK's got an almost-point in that I have no use at all for traditional Christian morality, being an athiest. I think we've got to make our own.

 

[Oddish On Fire]

Well, as a quick post I just thought I would add some statistics to back up the claim that atheists in general have higher morals than Christians.

75% of America identifies themselves as Christians

75% of the people in jail are Christians

10% of the population identifies themselves as atheists

.2% of the people in jail are atheists

The divorce rate for "Born Again Christians" is 27%

The divorce rate for "Mainstream Protestants" is 24%

The divorce rate for "Atheists and Agnostics" is 21%

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdVucvo-kDU

These facts were checked by Harvard fucking University.

If America's laws are founded on the ten commandments (which is what DK said), and jail is a sentence for breaking America's laws, then doesn't that mean that atheists follow the ten commandments better than Christians? DK, this is an actual question that I want you to answer.





Also, before DK says anything about the wall between church and state not existing (regarding Jr^7's post), let me present to you Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli which proves that not only did the founding fathers oppose the unlawful congregation of church and state, but that conjoining them is illegal.

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahomaten Nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

EDIT:

Still no response from DK :(

 

[Agape]

Is the divorce rate only from people actually married, or also taking those couples who just "live together" without an official marriage?

If it's the former, it's not accurate enough for the atheists, for christian marriages are more often "official" marriage covenants.

If it's the latter, I'm grateful I don't live in America.


By the way, this clearly shows that the increase of atheism/evolution based moral has drastically declined the overall moral of humans on marriages.

Compare the overall divorce rates of the previous centuries to the present...

 

[Oddish On Fire]

Is the divorce rate only from people actually married, or also taking those couples who just "live together" without an official marriage?

If it's the former, it's not accurate enough for the atheists, for christian marriages are more often "official" marriage covenants.

If it's the latter, I'm grateful I don't live in America.


By the way, this clearly shows that the increase of atheism/evolution based moral has drastically declined the overall moral of humans on marriages.

Compare the overall divorce rates of the previous centuries to the present...

As I said, it's MARRIAGE, not couples. However, did you seriously just try to fucking spin that to show that atheism is degrading marriage? Back your claim up. I want to see how the fuck you can make such a blantantly stupid statement in the face of actual proof that atheists are more moral than Christians. I don't see this "clearly" at all. If you want to post something this stupid, at least back it up with some logic.

I want you to answer this; How would me being an atheist degrade someone elses marriage?

Please think before posting such ignorant rhetoric again.

EDIT:

In what country do you live, Agape?

 

[Force Majeure]

Is the divorce rate only from people actually married, or also taking those couples who just "live together" without an official marriage?

Yes, as that is what a divorce is. I'm fairly certain that there are oodles of Christians who cohabitate before marriage anyway, so this is a fairly dumb question.

By the way, this clearly shows that the increase of atheism/evolution based moral has drastically declined the overall moral of humans on marriages.

Compare the overall divorce rates of the previous centuries to the present...

No it doesn't, and you're full of shit. Just think for one second about this. Evolution and Atheism has made Christians more likely to get a divorce. It makes no sense.

OK, let's compare overall divorce rates. Yep, they were lower back then. Not to mention the fact that women were commonly seen as property and inferior to men, people faced pressure from their respective families to remain married no matter what, etc. It's really a dipshit argument on your side.

 

[Zero7]

litlmc01, I might be missing something in your post, but those statistics aren't really useful: as you stated that atheists are only 10% of the population, so of course there are less of them in jail.

 

[lati0s]

zero7, you missed the point, the percentage of Christians in jail is about the same as the percentage of Christians in the general population however, the percentage of atheists in jail is much less than in the general population, this implies that atheists are less likely to be criminals than Christians.

 

[Oddish On Fire]

EDIT:

In order to avoid this turning into a flame war (essentially killing the thread), my apologies. It's just that after debating with someone like Agape, I tend to forget that not everyone who misses a point is a complete fool. You're right on this one. Instead of jumping to a conclusion, I should have softly replied. Once again, my bad.

I'll save further outbursts for people who deserve them instead of targeting someone else.

 

[Zero7]

post not needed

 

[Thisaccountwashackedlol]

By the way, this clearly shows that the increase of atheism/evolution based moral has drastically declined the overall moral of humans on marriages.

Compare the overall divorce rates of the previous centuries to the present...

I spent five minutes trying to figure out how you reached that conclusion. I couldn't do it. Please explain your thought process.

I'm more inclined to believe that you must somehow admire Deck Knight, and did not want him to win the shameful 'most ignorant statement of the week' award.

 

[Darkflagrance]

Most of the issues here have already been covered, so I will be brief on the two assertions that irk me most.

Firstly, Science and religion are opposed to each other. Not by accident, not in certain cases, not even in the case of your particular God, but by definition.

Science is about the open-minded exploration of the functions of the world, the creation of logical hypotheses, and testing them empirically. Conclusions are based on the results of these tests. I like your very positive, affirming description of science

Conversely, an adherent to a religion holds that the world functions according the the decrees of his or her religion, as interpreted by himself from a religious work, an over-active imagination, or some religious authority figure. Some of these characterizations are quite unnecessary. I would characterize religion as incorporating elements that are revelatory and not provable based simply on observable phenomena.

Pick one or the other. The cannot function together.

Untrue, really. It is possible for a person to hold the principles of both true at the same time.

First point: we can acquire knowledge in two ways. One is clearly through the use of our senses and our logic. This approach to learning about the world embodies science.
The other means of learning about the world is through revelation or intuition, hence religion. The problem is that empirically observing things about the world cannot give us the fundamental assumptions that we need to operate, such as the most fundamental one that we can trust our senses and that we don't really live in an illusion that will cease to exist in 5 seconds. Even science requires some act of faith.

Second point: the two are indeed compatible, especially in the case of Christianity. Although Christianity claims to contain the truth, that truth is subject to the flawed interpretation of humans, evidenced by the many different sects of Christianity that exist that interpret the Bible differently. Also, science is not perfect; it is ever evolving. Who is ever to say that what we know now may not one day be completely reversed? Thus, that the current claims of science contradict my religion would not be a concern to me if I did hold to a faith. I would continue to carry out my life consistent with the conclusions of faith and science where applicable, with the assurance that one day they would be reconciled.

By the way, I utterly detest some of the arguments that pro-religion folks are using in this thread. They really weaken the position of the side but don't touch on any particular truths, only a dissatisfaction with modern society.

You tell me what I say is meaningless and then make my point even better than I did. Nobody would be a Christian if it didn't already account for their experience. These people aren't getting their morals from religion, they are choosing their religion based on what their morals already are. They have a sense of what is right and wrong before God "talks to them" in the bible, because they admit that if God's word was different they wouldn't believe it. So they aren't even using that book to decide their morals, but rather to decide that their morals are divine and higher than everyone else's. This is why they claim that they follow divine morals and try to flaunt this as an advantage against atheists.

The fact that they choose the book by their morals and not vice versa is directly contradictory to their claim that their morals come from a higher source than those of atheists. It is not an attack on the bible (though I have plenty), nor was it ever claimed to be. I don't really see how it is a contradiction to the bible, since it's technically possible (in the same way most other religions claims are) that a religious book could condone pedophillia and still be written by the inerrant all-powerful creator. The only way I can see what I said being an attack on the bible is if you can't tell the difference between any attack on religion and an attack on a specific book.

Let me clarify. When I say that people choose a belief system consistent with their experience, I say that because it is ridiculous to assume that people chose their morality in a vacuum, which Deck Knight has also picked up on. As he said, atheists choose atheism because it fits with the principles they innately feel to be true and have developed on in their experience. Likewise, mature Christians continue to follow their religion because the bible fits a belief they have that people are innately moral, and there must be something responsible for this and the universe.

You say that it is ridiculous that people should pick the bible as a source of authority because it meshes with what they know, instead of because it claims to be a priori true. Not even Christ, from what I read of the bible in college, required that people simply acknowledge him as true just because he claimed to be divine. I remember that he performed miracles and taught to show people that his morality was truly divine.

By the way, moral systems always battle because people claim that a set of moral principles are inherently better than others - even if those moral principles include inclusivity as this one seems to.

 

[Brain]

We can acquire knowledge in two ways. One is clearly through the use of our senses and our logic. This approach to learning about the world embodies science.
The other means of learning about the world is through revelation or intuition, hence religion. The problem is that empirically observing things about the world cannot give us the fundamental assumptions that we need to operate, such as the most fundamental one that we can trust our senses and that we don't really live in an illusion that will cease to exist in 5 seconds. Even science requires some act of faith.

The assumptions that science works with are more or less the same as the assumptions one needs in order to go about their everyday life. Though in fact, there isn't really any need to assume anything. Consider whether the current state of affairs contains information about the future states of affairs or not. If it does not, the world is random and there exists no appropriate course of action anyway. If it does, science is little more than the art of analyzing current information to predict and exploit the future. It follows that science is always an appropriate way to determine the nature of the universe, regardless of whether it actually succeeds or not.

Intuition could be appropriately defined as "subconscious reasoning" - an inference over sense data using parts of your brain that are not subject to conscious introspection and thus cannot necessarily be understood, manipulated or reproduced (though, arguably, they could if we cracked open your skull). Intuition and logic should be used in tandem to find ideas (explore the space of possibilities) and to understand them (prove that the solutions found are adequate), respectively. I don't think they are two ways to acquire knowledge, they are more like two sides of the same coin. Taken alone, neither has much worth: logic alone won't tell you where to search for solutions, intuition alone is wrong or inaccurate too often to be trusted without verification. Both are mathematical models of sorts and could be the subject of analysis; they just work differently.

The difference between science and religion is pretty simple. When you use science to obtain a parcel of knowledge, you typically intend to use that knowledge for a real purpose. Should that knowledge be inaccurate, disappointment (and/or catastrophes) will ensue. Now, if you take things that religion tell you (God exists, there is one absolute morality, there's heaven and hell, etc.) it stands to reason that it's actually irrelevant whether these facts are true or not. It may very well matter whether you believe they are true or not, but their actual truth value will never be known and will not have any effect on anything. For this reason, it seems that science will tend to be highly correlated to truth (or useful facts) because it has to - whereas religion will not see any correlation to truth or anything useful beyond the belief itself. Science is useful only when it leads to useful knowledge. Religion is useful regardless of whether it teaches true things or not (and it's much easier not to). Which one would you trust?

Let me clarify. When I say that people choose a belief system consistent with their experience, I say that because it is ridiculous to assume that people chose their morality in a vacuum, which Deck Knight has also picked up on. As he said, atheists choose atheism because it fits with the principles they innately feel to be true and have developed on in their experience. Likewise, mature Christians continue to follow their religion because the bible fits a belief they have that people are innately moral, and there must be something responsible for this and the universe.

There is however no reason to think that any moral principles originate from the Bible in the first place. In fact, the Bible seems to be adaptable to almost anything you want it to say. It is not a paragon of clarity.

 

[Darkflagrance]

The difference between science and religion is pretty simple. When you use science to obtain a parcel of knowledge, you typically intend to use that knowledge for a real purpose. Should that knowledge be inaccurate, disappointment (and/or catastrophes) will ensue. Now, if you take things that religion tell you (God exists, there is one absolute morality, there's heaven and hell, etc.) it stands to reason that it's actually irrelevant whether these facts are true or not. It may very well matter whether you believe they are true or not, but their actual truth value will never be known and will not have any effect on anything. For this reason, it seems that science will tend to be highly correlated to truth (or useful facts) because it has to - whereas religion will not see any correlation to truth or anything useful beyond the belief itself. Science is useful only when it leads to useful knowledge. Religion is useful regardless of whether it teaches true things or not (and it's much easier not to). Which one would you trust?

You say science is the only way to attain "useful truths". Your definitions of "useful" and "truth" are limited. "Useful" as you use it entails something that can either lead to technological innovation or continued fact discovery. "Truth" as you use it simply means something that is proven by science, which is fundamentally tautological.

However, to say that religion is useless because it cannot lead to, say, technological innovation, is to say that equally, any talk of morality or life philosophy on any level is meaningless. I'm not going to call it science, because that gives it an aura of impenetrability that sometimes blinds people. Science is really what we humans have discovered about our world through our hard work and intelligent application of logic. It also embodies an epistemological philosophy, but such a philosophy need not be applicable to every experience of life or every search for knowledge.

I've read your system of morality based on power-increase, and I laud it because it is internally consistent. However, a system of morality cannot be empirically proven by science, because the truth that science finds is empirical, and empiricism cannot immediately address the reasons, truths , or causes of human existence. Otherwise, why are there so many conflicting theories of morality even without recourse to some divine spirit?

I say there is no reason not to trust both. Clearly each has sway in different spheres. If you want to learn more about the world, there are tools that allow you to do so. If you believe in truth that cannot be found with just your senses, search what the great religions of the world say about existence and you may find your answer.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

You say science is the only way to attain "useful truths". Your definitions of "useful" and "truth" are limited. "Useful" as you use it entails something that can either lead to technological innovation or continued fact discovery. "Truth" as you use it simply means something that is proven by science, which is fundamentally tautological.

Just because you don't believe something doesn't mean it is not true. There are plenty of ways to prove something is true: do it over and over again. Science has this little thing called "the experiment" where you can personally challenge anything contained in a science book. Do you not believe that something "scientific" is true? Just repeat the experiment for yourself! Where is this kind of test for religion? There is none, you have to die before you can find out if your belief is right or not (which would be convenient if religion was purposely lying to you, they'd never be found out!). The "truth" given by religion is not comparable to the truth given by observation.

I say there is no reason not to trust both. Clearly each has sway in different spheres. If you want to learn more about the world, there are tools that allow you to do so. If you believe in truth that cannot be found with just your senses, search what the great religions of the world say about existence and you may find your answer.

There is plenty of reason to not trust both: there is no evidence for one of them. Deluding yourself into faith in an absolute truth is not going to help you "learn more about the world". If it does, it is for the wrong reasons.

 

[Brain]

You say science is the only way to attain "useful truths". Your definitions of "useful" and "truth" are limited. "Useful" as you use it entails something that can either lead to technological innovation or continued fact discovery.

No, not really. I use it in a pretty down to earth "let's not run into walls" way. Trusting our senses is definitely useful in that sense, and for that matter I really couldn't care less if sense data is illusory. I don't want to run into walls, I want food in my mouth, I want to avoid what's hurtful and have what's pleasurable. Simple.

"Truth" as you use it simply means something that is proven by science, which is fundamentally tautological.

No. "Truth" isn't a term that's easy to define otherwise than colloquially and that's how I use it for the most part. Technically speaking, there exists no method of any kind that can guarantee the truth of non-tautological statements, so I don't think the concept of "truth" is interesting at all. Hence, when I say "truth" I mean it in a "you know what I mean" way and that's all there is to it. I could rephrase the argument in sole terms of usefulness (down to earth usefulness) for greater clarity.

However, to say that religion is useless because it cannot lead to, say, technological innovation,

Where did I say religion was useless? On the contrary, I said religion was useful. However, it is not useful because it's "truthful", it's useful because it's a bonding mechanism for people among other things. That is to say, whereas the belief that you are not running into a wall is useful unless there's actually a wall there, the belief in God is useful regardless of whether God exists or not. The usefulness of believing whether you are facing a wall or not is conditional to the existence of the wall. The usefulness of believing that God exists is not conditional to his existence.

is to say that equally, any talk of morality or life philosophy on any level is meaningless.

Not at all. To talk about morality is to talk about the behaviors that make people happy or sad. There is clear utility in finding out moral principles that work, so that we can apply them and be happier. Of course, that doesn't mean we can find the "perfect moral principles" since these simply do not exist - but we can work towards "improving" things from our perspective. We can try to work towards a higher consensus through various means, etc.

Science is really what we humans have discovered about our world through our hard work and intelligent application of logic. It also embodies an epistemological philosophy, but such a philosophy need not be applicable to every experience of life or every search for knowledge.

The problem is that as soon as a method of acquiring knowledge can be shown to work, it basically becomes science. Should there exist a mysterious machine that systemically prints out the winning lottery numbers for tomorrow, you could determine through repeated trials whether it works or not, correlate the proper variables and include that thing in theories. That's science.

The issue here is that there is no reason to think that something like faith is correlated with the "truth value" of the belief that is held faithfully.

I've read your system of morality based on power-increase, and I laud it because it is internally consistent.

Ascalon said that. Not me. I don't have a system of morality per se. Just my own inner moral compass which seems to be good enough for me to function in society. It's ad hoc but I don't mind because I don't think there exists any systems of morality that can really withstand scrutiny - all morality is ad hoc and I close the books there.

However, a system of morality cannot be empirically proven by science, because the truth that science finds is empirical

No. A system of morality cannot be empirically "proven" by science because there is nothing to prove. Morality has no truth value. No "absolute morality" exists.

and empiricism cannot immediately address the reasons, truths , or causes of human existence.

Empiricism cannot address these things, but as a matter of fact, nothing can. Just try and see how far it gets you. Also, there is no reason to think that there is any reason or cause to human existence. In fact these questions strike me as rather absurd.

Otherwise, why are there so many conflicting theories of morality even without recourse to some divine spirit?

Because morality is a subjective affair, down to the very principles that it uses as a foundation. Of course there are conflicting theories of morality. There is no true morality, so it couldn't be otherwise. The best one can do regarding morality is to abstract the few principles that are generally agreed upon and/or to convince others (through rhetoric or other means) that some morality is better than some other. Religion is a mechanism used to "stabilize" morality. That morality is, of course, still as ad hoc as ever, but at least it is stable.

I say there is no reason not to trust both. Clearly each has sway in different spheres. If you want to learn more about the world, there are tools that allow you to do so. If you believe in truth that cannot be found with just your senses, search what the great religions of the world say about existence and you may find your answer.

Say you wonder if God exists. I can perfectly imagine religions existing without God existing. So whether God exists or not, you will be reading the same texts and you will be thinking the same things. It ensues that if you choose to believe that God exists, it won't be because he exists, since if he didn't, you'd still believe he does. Should you be right in your belief, it would be purely accidental. With science, it's easy: you apply the same standards as anything else and it ensues that you believe in God just like you believe that there's a green shoe orbiting the sun in the asteroid belt, too small to be observed.

Truth is, if there's "truth that cannot be found with just your senses" (notwithstanding analysis of sense data and tools that enhance sensorial perception, obviously), there's no way you can find out what it is. In the end, senses are all you have.

 

[diinbong]

Wait, wait, DK. Atheists are the ones listening to the voice in their heads for direction? Because how many times have you knelt down at the end of your bed praying and heard a concrete voice speak back to you?

 

[Altmer]

I'd just like to point out (again) that there is no necessary commonality in the moral codes of any two atheists. Atheism is only grouped together insofar as they do not believe in God.