On 13 Jan 2013, at 02:53, meekerdb wrote:
On 1/12/2013 3:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 12 Jan 2013, at 07:30, meekerdb wrote:
On 1/11/2013 9:41 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 4:42 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 1/11/2013 2:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 11:25 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
In a message dated 1/11/2013 2:27:33 AM Eastern Standard Time, [email protected]
writes:
1) Choose some religion, it doesn't matter which
2) Find an idea some adherents of that religion put forward but
almost no one seriously believes in or is easily shown to be
inconsistent
3) Assume that because you have disproved one idea of one
religion that all ideas found in all religions are false and/or
unscientific
4) Bask in the feeling of superiority over those who are not so
enlightened
Jason
Ok, so in Darwinian fashion you sort through hundreds of faiths,
so what happens when you cannot dissprove a religion? You sort
them down till you hit a toughie, does that make it
automatically correct, or is it the intellectual limitation of
the sorter? Your Basking, is angering many non-believers, even.
Witness Higg's criticism of Dawkins. Believers, Jason, I suppose
will merely, pray for your soul (poor lad!).
Perhaps if you decided to create your own religion, that
couldn't be disproved, based on physics, or math, you would be
coming up with the best faith? Then we could all be converted to
being Jasonites. Or Reschers-whichever you prefer?
I'm nor sure I understand your point. My point was only that
John's adherence to atheism, which he defines as belief in no
Gods, is less rational than someone following his 4-step program
to become a liberal theologian.
In particular, it is the above step 3, rejecting all religious
ideas as false without giving the idea a fair scientific
evaluation, which is especially problematic. John is perhaps
being prescient in turning a blind eye to these other ideas, as
otherwise we might have the specter of a self-proclaimed atheist
who finds scientific justification for after lives,
reincarnation, karma, beings who exercise complete control over
worlds of their design and creation, as well as a self-existent
changeless infinite object responsible for the existence of all
reality.
He would rather avoid those topics altogether and take solace in
denying specific instances of inconsistent or silly definitions
of God.
But your parody fails as a serious argument because the ideas put
forward by *almost all theists* include a very powerful,
beneficent, all knowing superbeing who will judge and reward and
punish souls in an after life and who answers prayers.
Please provide some reference showing almost all theists use that
definition of God. I find it unlikely that most theists would
incorporate every facet of that definition.
"Every facet"?? It's only the standard, three omni's of
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam except I left the requirements
even weaker, plus answering prayers. You're just being obtuse.
You know perfectly well that's what theism means.
Even between various sects of Christianity and Islam, views
differ regarding whether or not God is all knowing. An all-
knowing God implies predestination, which is contested between
various groups.
Now some, far from powerful, humans with far from complete
information, eliminated smallpox from the world. God therefore
must have had that power and simply chose not to do it. So if
any very powerful, very knowledgeable superbeing exists, it is
not beneficent and not an acceptable judge of good and evil.
These are not just a peripheral idea of theisms and it's
falsehood is not a minor point because all theism insist that
these ideas are definitive of their religion.
It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with;
it only takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is
why I think it is an untenable and illogical position.
But there can't be even 'one correct theism' as I pointed out
above, the very definition of theism allows it to be empirically
falsified by the appearance of unnecessary evil, in my example
evil that mere human beings had the power to eliminate and did
eliminate. What can you say about a superbeing who can eliminate
an evil but chooses not to. You can't say he's the beneficent God
of theism.
Even the Christian Thomists were aware that God cannot be both
omnipotent and omniscient (unless inconsistent).
Which is why I was careful in my example to require only that God be
very powerful and very knowledgeable and beneficent - not that he be
perfect or 'omni' in any of these virtues, only that He be much
better than we expect people to be.
OK.
Anyway, I don't use the term "god" and "religion" or "theology" in
the occidental conventional religion sense. Like I don't use the
term "genetics" in the USSR Lyssenko sense.
It is irrational to fight against a field from the fact that the
curent proponents are a bit delirious about it, which can be
explained by the human emotion of some, and the willing of power of
others.
On the contrary, it is important to fight against it when it's
delirious adherents want to use the machinery of government to
impose their theology.
Like when they say that prohibition is good for the health. It is a
mini-situation which mimic all the problem when we let people thinking
at our place/ Once you accept that theology can use authoritative
arguments, this spread on the whole of the human science, including
medicine and we pay the strong price (I evaluate roughly the number of
people dead by prohibition (since Nixon) close to at least the million).
Today I disbelieve in the politics of health of most countries, but
this is because I do believe in some notion of health.
And I don't believe in the god of theism because I believe in some
notion reality.
The point is that all God requires faith, and thus theism. I am
agnostic on many religion, but sometimes you can still find the divine
inspiration beyond the authoritarian politics.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do
it from religious conviction.
--- Pascal, Pens'ees
Pascal is right. We cannot do anything by invoking God, as it becomes
automatically an argument per authority. If someone want to do
something "good", he can do it, and he can say in private that he
believes in God. But even in private he cannot say "I believe in God,
and so I will do this or that". With comp this is roughly equivalent
with lying. No terrestrial action can be justified in his name, not one.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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