General Discussions

The Root of all Evil : The God Delusion

POSTED BY: Calhoun
UPDATED: Thursday, December 17, 2015 06:12
VIEWED: 49488
PAGE 31 of 32

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Thursday, May 31, 2007 10:16 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Calhoun:
That seems to be the general concensus among religiousy types. Rule of faith number 3:If faith is challenged - stick head in the sand. Also referred to as the "ostrich manouvre".

Not really. I don’t really have a whole lot of time, and I think I’ve already heard what this guy has to say. Scurrying up fear of people because they are different, whether it’s skin color or religion, is a really old story.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

CALHOUN

Friday, June 1, 2007 1:46 AM

Quote:
Finn mac Cumhal wrote:
Thursday, May 31, 2007 12:16
Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Calhoun:
That seems to be the general concensus among religiousy types. Rule of faith number 3:If faith is challenged - stick head in the sand. Also referred to as the "ostrich manouvre".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not really. I don’t really have a whole lot of time, and I think I’ve already heard what this guy has to say. Scurrying up fear of people because they are different, whether it’s skin color or religion, is a really old story.

You see, I like to know what i'm talking about before I opine..

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, June 1, 2007 2:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Calhoun:
You see, I like to know what i'm talking about before I opine..

I’m sorry no one gives a crap about this documentary your so fascinated with, but if you read though the thread, you’ll see that no one was really discussing the documentary, just the issue in general.

LEADB

Friday, June 1, 2007 2:23 AM

Well, if you'd like I'll post after I've had a good look over the book (which I have on reserve at the library)?

I've not found a legit free source of the documentary, and I'm not interested in putting money in this guys' wallet (at least, not until I'm reasonably confident he hasn't stepped off the far end of reasonableness).

CALHOUN

Friday, June 1, 2007 2:50 AM

Quote:
Finn mac Cumhal wrote:
Thursday, May 31, 2007 16:05
Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Calhoun:
You see, I like to know what i'm talking about before I opine..
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m sorry no one gives a crap about this documentary your so fascinated with

Whoa! wipe the rabid foam from your chin and start again...

Quote:
Finn mac Cumhal wrote:
Thursday, May 31, 2007 16:05
Quote:

, but if you read though the thread, you’ll see that no one was really discussing the documentary, just the issue in general.

Exactly my point....

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, June 1, 2007 2:57 AM

You’ll get over it.

This thread could have been a disaster, but it turned into a very well-behaved and interesting discussion on religion between many well educated people with varied opinions. That’s probably a first internet history.

CALHOUN

Friday, June 1, 2007 6:45 AM

Quote:
Finn mac Cumhal wrote:
Thursday, May 31, 2007 16:57
You’ll get over it.

Again with the voicing opinions on things you know nothing about!

but..

as it happens.., I am over it.

MALACHITE

Friday, June 1, 2007 3:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:

"This thread could have been a disaster, but it turned into a very well-behaved and interesting discussion on religion between many well educated people with varied opinions. That’s probably a first internet history."

Malachite's comment starts here: (I didn't use the "reply with quote" function properly, evidently...)

I've got to say that I've appreciated being able to have reasonable, generally non-antagonistic conversations with intelligent people of varying opinions. I've generally avoided posting in most threads because some would rather throw out insults rather than try to see that intelligent, reasonable, educated people can have different opinions. I've observed that people sometimes resort to attacks when they are perhaps insecure in their own beliefs or feel that their beliefs are threatened in some way by someone else having a different opinion.

As a side note, I've been wondering: have we come to a consensus that the "God Delusion" is not the "root of all evil"? I would venture to say that no particular religion (or lack thereof) would get to claim this distinction. But, if it isn't religion, what is? Some ideas mentioned in this thread have been that man is the root of all evil. Some have also mentioned that perhaps God is the root of all evil, since he created man with a free will and the potential to do evil. (Of course, the statement that God is the root of all evil, assumes that God exists -- so I would think that it would be difficult for a true atheist to hold this position).

Some have also said that this thread has been going on for way too long...

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MALACHITE

Friday, June 1, 2007 8:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by leadb:
What I personally think is amazing is the effort that is put into fleshing these 'theories' out when, at the end, they don't prove anything.

For instance, cannot we presume that, if God were any good at this universe creation thing, he could simply 'initiate' a universe with physical properties that the coming of 'semi-intelligent' life (I'm referring to humans here, in case anyone isn't sure) somewhere in that universe was pretty much a 'sure thing.' Why the constant need to say 'then God found the universe not quite to his liking and stuffed people into it'? In the 'God initiated the universe' view, science's only failing regarding the begining of life is to have failed to identify (yet) the means by which God very cleverly designed into the universe so this would happen as a pretty much 'sure fire' thing.

The only reason I can see for this is a need to literally interpret the bible; and for that reason, I tend to sit out the discussions. The folks holding onto the literal interpretation aren't going to be convinced, so I don't bother.

Intelligent Design as a 'wedge' will never work the way the folks with this agenda wish; because many scientists will grant that all they are trying to do is understand the mechanism God has put in place such that 'here we are.' It would be more honest if folks with this agenda simply stated, 'this is contrary to the Bible, the Bible is literally true, ergo, we don't accept this', rather than try to wrap psuedo-science around it; which just confuses things. The first stance I can 'accept', the second stance simply seems dishonest to me. O.. well, we do have the seperation of church and state... so they can't simply teach that the bible is literally true and thus the science is 'wrong' in a public school. Well. They are in a bind, aren't they?

You know, I'm not sure I've thought this through from the this perspective before. To me, it is -so- obvious that science is not 'incompatible with' or 'tries to prove religion is wrong'; but then I've never really pondered it from that perspective. Not that it changes my mind any, but they -really are- in a bind.

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I agree that the "theories" don't prove anything. That is partially my point: why do we say that people who doubt a naturalistic origin of life are irrational when the claims we make about a naturalistic origin cannot be established with scientific evidence and, equally important, cannot even be disproven? I agree with your point about how science and God don't have to be incompatible and that approaching science with an agenda (the example you used was proving a literal interpretation of the bible -- but I would add, that other scientists can have agendas as well) do not approach science as objectively as is ideal . I personally don't think that finding a naturalistic explanation to the origin of life deals a mortal blow to one's belief in God.

Where I take issue is when someone either 1) claims that a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life somehow disproves the existence of God or 2) claims that it is irrational to have doubts in a naturalistic origin of life and then uses the lottery argument to state that a naturalistic origin of life is inevitable or even highly probable. If my walking-through-walls analogy is actually a more realistic one for describing the chances of life spontaneously forming, I think it is very reasonable to have doubts about the inevitability of life forming spontaneously. Even if that analogy doesn't pan out, I still think if you ran millions of Miller experiments without a "trap" for as long as you wanted, you wouldn't get anywhere near the formation of life. I think you'd just get messy lab equipment. Why don't we hear about those kind of studies, anyway? It seems t

LEADB

Saturday, June 2, 2007 2:39 AM

I really can't say I disagree with you.

I have faith that someday, a scientist will figure out the mechanism by which life is fairly 'obviously' going to arise in a 'naturalistic' way; as I think if God exists he's too clever to tip his hand like that ;-)