NOVA - Intelligent Design On Trial

[flamesfever]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I find it sad and feel genuine pity for people whose life is only meaningful because they have an irrational belief in a magical space fairy. I feel even worse if those same people don't live their lives to their absolute fullest because they believe they'll be rewarded with an eternity in paradise after death.

MarchHare, I believe it's important for Atheists and Believers in God to have respect for one another.

As a Believer, I find your reference to God as "magical space fairy" highly offensive and disrespectful.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Which question is that? The one where you accused me of living such an insecure life (which I don't) so that I most mock and ridicule religious people (which I haven't done) in order to feel better about myself?

This is what you said....

I find it sad and feel genuine pity for people whose life is only meaningful because they have an irrational belief in a magical space fairy. I feel even worse if those same people don't live their lives to their absolute fullest because they believe they'll be rewarded with an eternity in paradise after death.

What difference does it make how people live their lives?

I know people who live that way. If it gives them meaning and a purpose for life who am I to argue. It makes them no less of a person because they don't share the same beliefs as you. And i'm sure they don't need your pity.

[MarchHare]

MarchHare, I believe it's important for Atheists and Believers in God to have respect for one another.

To a certain extent, I agree. I don't disrespect anyone as an individual solely because of their belief in a supernatural god. I don't; however, think that I should automatically have to respect someone's beliefs. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the beliefs of an educated adult who claimed to have a genuine faith in the existence of the Easter Bunny would not be worthy of respect. To me, I see no difference between the Easter Bunny (or the Invisible Pink Unicorn, Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc.) and a supernatural creator-god.

As a Believer, I find your reference to God as "magical space fairy" highly offensive and disrespectful.

If I used the words "all-powerful, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent creator of the universe", you wouldn't find that offensive or disrespectful, would you? How is "magical space fairy", which is essentially saying the same thing, any different?

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Dion

This is what you said....

I find it sad and feel genuine pity for people whose life is only meaningful because they have an irrational belief in a magical space fairy. I feel even worse if those same people don't live their lives to their absolute fullest because they believe they'll be rewarded with an eternity in paradise after death.

What difference does it make how people live their lives?

I know people who live that way. If it gives them meaning and a purpose for life who am I to argue. It makes them no less of a person because they don't share the same beliefs as you. And i'm sure they don't need your pity.

It can be pretty hard for atheists and believers to understand one another. Both are outsider perspectives of the other. Personally, my belief in God doesn't feel like an "irrational belief in a magical space fairy". It gives me peace, optimism, and the occasional ability to see outside my narrow self-interest. Contrary to the picture that alot of the a-theologians paint, many believers are rational and kind people. Organized religion is man-made and suffers from the flaws in human nature. The thirst for power, dominance and oppression of the weak. Those are present in anybody. I don't like pointing fingers at anybody, but I know everyone has these faults. I don't think Christ envisioned Catholic priests raping children or the fruit-less bloodshed in the Middle East as the purpose of his teachings.

As other posters, have said, why can't both sides listen to each other in a rational manner and discuss things for the benefit of all humanity. Atheists have just as much a lesson to learn as religious people. Alot of the so-called "logic and reasonable" posts in this thread and others are really just polemical thrusts intended to get a rise out of the religious.

[MarchHare]

It can be pretty hard for atheists and believers to understand one another.

I'm not so sure of that. Most atheists I know, myself included, were once believers, having been raised in the religious traditions of their parents/family. Because of that, most atheists have an "insider's perspective" on what it is like to be a religious person. I'm not sure that the vice versa is true, that is, I don't know many (or any, for that matter) religious people who understand the perspective of a non-believer.

I was raised as a Catholic, was baptized and confirmed, and spent many years as an altar boy at my church. I attended mass and Sunday school every week for most of my childhood and adolescence. I didn't even begin to question my faith until I was maybe 15 or 16, and it wasn't until I was 20 or 21 that I turned my back on religion and acknowledged that I was a non-believer. Even then, I labeled myself as an agnostic until only a few years ago, when I realized that the term atheist (of the weak, not strong, variety) better applied to my views.

I don't think my personal experience as described above is all that uncommon amongst atheists.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I'm not so sure of that. Most atheists I know, myself included, were once believers, having been raised in the religious traditions of their parents/family. Because of that, most atheists have an "insider's perspective" on what it is like to be a religious person. I'm not sure that the vice versa is true, that is, I don't know many (or any, for that matter) religious people who understand the perspective of a non-believer.

I was raised as a Catholic, was baptized and confirmed, and spent many years as an altar boy at my church. I attended mass and Sunday school every week for most of my childhood and adolescence. I didn't even begin to question my faith until I was maybe 15 or 16, and it wasn't until I was 20 or 21 that I turned my back on religion and acknowledged that I was a non-believer. Even then, I labeled myself as an agnostic until only a few years ago, when I realized that the term atheist (of the weak, not strong, variety) better applied to my views.

I don't think my personal experience as described above is all that uncommon amongst atheists.

Fair enough. However, I have to still disagree. Religious people, as hopefully you know, aren't some homogenous lump of people. They don't feel, do, or think the same things. Experiences are all different.

What I meant is, an atheist, even one such as yourself, can never understand a "truly" religious experience. Nothing really wrong with it at all. I can't imagine a life without a belief. I don't think it makes us really different people. I'm sure we agree on many things, probably for very similar reasons.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by peter12

Fair enough. However, I have to still disagree. Religious people, as hopefully you know, aren't some homogenous lump of people. They don't feel, do, or think the same things. Experiences are all different.

What I meant is, an atheist, even one such as yourself, can never understand a "truly" religious experience. Nothing really wrong with it at all. I can't imagine a life without a belief. I don't think it makes us really different people. I'm sure we agree on many things, probably for very similar reasons.

Believing in a car, another person or the idea of flight is something ALL of us can believe.
When skeptics apply higher standards for claims based on religious experiences than they do for claims based on other experiences, they are thought of as exhibiting a prejudice against religion.
There are many problems with this train of thought. The biggest of all of them is, if there is just one God, why is there such wide variety in the reports of religious experiences?
Real experiences that have a large impact on a person can have completely natural sources without any divine connections....yet we as atheists dont suggest that you the "theist" cannot have a real experience!
The idea that only the religious can experience something divine sounds a whole lot like grape flavored Kool-Aid to me.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Cheese

Believing in a car, another person or the idea of flight is something ALL of us can believe.
When skeptics apply higher standards for claims based on religious experiences than they do for claims based on other experiences, they are thought of as exhibiting a prejudice against religion.
There are many problems with this train of thought. The biggest of all of them is, if there is just one God, why is there such wide variety in the reports of religious experiences?
Real experiences that have a large impact on a person can have completely natural sources without any divine connections....yet we as atheists dont suggest that you the "theist" cannot have a real experience!
The idea that only the religious can experience something divine sounds a whole lot like grape flavored Kool-Aid to me.

When I talk about a religious experience, I'm not talking about hearing voices or seeing visions. I'm talking about something that I am unable to explain, nor should I be taken to task to explain it to a non-believer. I believe the only measurable effect is that which it has on my own life. I'm not suggesting that these experiences are only for "the faithful". I am suggesting though that they are of a different strain, but that they are in many ways similar.

You can make all the allusions to cults you want. You can make any slanderous remarks you want comparing the evil actions of some that call themselves religious and applying that to the whole. It is wrong that some atheists and religious people somehow attempt to put peoples of both types in silos that can never interact in a passionate and rational manner.

I am often quite disappointed in your comments, Cheese. I respect your beliefs and I am quite sure that you are a logical and reasonable person. However, you don't seem content with that, instead settling for the slander and humiliation of another group of people.

[photon]

Originally Posted by peter12

What I meant is, an atheist, even one such as yourself, can never understand a "truly" religious experience. Nothing really wrong with it at all.

I find it amusing how you just posed about someone supposedly lumping people together and then you go ahead and do the same thing.

As MarchHare pointed out, a great many atheists come out of organized religion, and a lot I am sure would say they've had "truly" religious experiences.

I wouldn't venture to classify myself as an atheist, deist, agnostic or whatever at this point, but I've had many experiences which at the time I would say were truly religious, but in the context of more knowledge and experience I now see they're simply experiences in a specific context.. something easily explained by the human condition. I haven't experienced anything that would be only explained by divine intervention.

On a tangent, it's funny because your qualification of a truly religious experience is one of the things that makes me question God and religion in general.. If it takes a truly religious experience to become a believer, why are some people granted this experience and others not? Seems kind of arbitrary.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by photon

I find it amusing how you just posed about someone supposedly lumping people together and then you go ahead and do the same thing.

As MarchHare pointed out, a great many atheists come out of organized religion, and a lot I am sure would say they've had "truly" religious experiences.

I wouldn't venture to classify myself as an atheist, deist, agnostic or whatever at this point, but I've had many experiences which at the time I would say were truly religious, but in the context of more knowledge and experience I now see they're simply experiences in a specific context.. something easily explained by the human condition. I haven't experienced anything that would be only explained by divine intervention.

On a tangent, it's funny because your qualification of a truly religious experience is one of the things that makes me question God and religion in general.. If it takes a truly religious experience to become a believer, why are some people granted this experience and others not? Seems kind of arbitrary.

I don't believe I did that at all. Do you believe that a non-believer can understand something that requires belief?

As for religious experience becoming a sort of prologue to belief... I think that the process is far more complicated than that. I personally don't want to talk about my own personal experiences on this message-board, it too often becomes a subject of mockery.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by peter12

When I talk about a religious experience, I'm not talking about hearing voices or seeing visions. I'm talking about something that I am unable to explain, nor should I be taken to task to explain it to a non-believer. I believe the only measurable effect is that which it has on my own life. I'm not suggesting that these experiences are only for "the faithful". I am suggesting though that they are of a different strain, but that they are in many ways similar.

You can make all the allusions to cults you want. You can make any slanderous remarks you want comparing the evil actions of some that call themselves religious and applying that to the whole. It is wrong that some atheists and religious people somehow attempt to put peoples of both types in silos that can never interact in a passionate and rational manner.

I am often quite disappointed in your comments, Cheese. I respect your beliefs and I am quite sure that you are a logical and reasonable person. However, you don't seem content with that, instead settling for the slander and humiliation of another group of people.

Wow...thems pretty big words peter. Make damned sure you understand what the heck you are talking about before you get yourself in trouble.

SLANDER - A false defamation (expressed in spoken words, signs, or gestures) which injures the character or reputation of the person defamed; distinguished from libel.

Prove the Slander...because claiming slander is a serious proposition and I dont take lightly to anyone using these types of words. I havent lied about anything...I never made a false declaration about you OR religion in a defamatory nature. Its you who are making the claims that cant be proven sir and if you cant discuss these things without throwing crap like this against the wall then you shouldnt get into the discussions.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Cheese

Wow...thems pretty big words peter. Make damned sure you understand what the heck you are talking about before you get yourself in trouble.

SLANDER - A false defamation (expressed in spoken words, signs, or gestures) which injures the character or reputation of the person defamed; distinguished from libel.

Prove the Slander...because claiming slander is a serious proposition and I dont take lightly to anyone using these types of words. I havent lied about anything...I never made a false declaration about you OR religion in a defamatory nature. Its you who are making the claims that cant be proven sir and if you cant discuss these things without throwing crap like this against the wall then you shouldnt get into the discussions.

You don't believe that by presenting a false or unbalanced view of a certain group of people in a public debate that you cannot be accused of being slanderous? Unbelievable.

Stop hiding behind semantics and your own biased opinions. You repeatedly make negative comments about a group of people that are somehow supposed to generalize everyone who is associated with that group. In my opinion, it's bad form and shows a distinct bias, as well as a general lack of understanding of the subject matter.

My claims are my claims. Nowhere have I made statements that indicate others should believe what I believe, only that a genuine respect exists between both the religious and atheists.

[flamesfever]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I'm not so sure of that. Most atheists I know, myself included, were once believers, having been raised in the religious traditions of their parents/family. Because of that, most atheists have an "insider's perspective" on what it is like to be a religious person. I'm not sure that the vice versa is true, that is, I don't know many (or any, for that matter) religious people who understand the perspective of a non-believer.

I'm a scientist and I can see where atheists are coming from. I am also a Believer for personal and private reasons which I also do not want to discuss on the Board.

Cheese, I thought you'd show up eventually. I believe a divine experience would be seeing you believing in a Higher Power. However, I don't expect that to happen anytime soon.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

I'm a scientist and I can see where atheists are coming from. I am also a Believer for personal and private reasons which I also do not want to discuss on the Board.

Cheese, I thought you'd show up eventually. I believe a divine experience would be seeing you believing in a Higher Power. However, I don't expect that to happen anytime soon.

Or perhaps showing polite respect for those who disagree with him.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by peter12

You don't believe that by presenting a false or unbalanced view of a certain group of people in a public debate that you cannot be accused of being slanderous? Unbelievable.

Stop hiding behind semantics and your own biased opinions.

Im asking you nicely to retract your threat of slander...once again if you cant have a civil discussion without resorting to serious and legal name calling, I will ask the mods to ban you.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Cheese

Im asking you nicely to retract your threat of slander...once again if you cant have a civil discussion without resorting to serious and legal name calling, I will ask the mods to ban you.

My threat of slander? I am merely stating what has occured in past debates regarding religion on this board. Your only response is to threaten my freedom to express myself.

[evman150]

I find it amusing that the "believers" in this thread are too embarrassed to talk about their beliefs and experiences.

Hard to face the fact that your beliefs are deserving of ridicule and that your "religious experiences" are nothing more than a misconstruction of events due to want, need, chance or other bias.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

I don't want to be the one who parsimoniously tries to cut through the nastiness, wondering "why we can't all just get along..." but can't we all just get along?

Atheism is a worldview (it's one that I happen to share) that is in essence predicated on pluralism: it holds that because no one religion has unique access to truth, that no one religion is worthy of belief, which leaves us to figure out those thorny questions of truth, spirituality, morality, ethics, etc. on our own. But a true pluralist knows that his own cosmic understanding is just as partial, just as contingent and just as relative--meaning that criticism of another's beliefs is senseless. Worse, it merely replicates the problems religion had in the first place--which was its claim to have a unique and superior access to truth.

Atheism is not a religious belief, in and of itself. It's the absence of a particular religious belief. I'm an atheist--can I categorically deny the existence of a God or gods, somehow not measurable according to the material, empirical means that I value? No. I can, however, surmise that since the range of religious experiences out there is so wide, and since the "zero-sum game" approach of religious belief, in which one person's being right means that someone else must be wrong is inconsistent with my basic pluralism--that God is unlikely to be the "Christian" god or the "Muslim" God or the Norse pagan pantheon, or whatever. That if "God" exists, he/she/it is firmly in the realm of the unknowable, leaving us to decide for ourselves how we are going to treat each other.

In the end, that's the true measure of a person, to me: how do you treat those who are different, who are less powerful, or whose voices are less strident? How do you address yourself to the essential mosaic of human experience and belief that is at the core of pluralism, which is in the end the keystone to an atheists' beliefs in the first place?

In that, I'm not so different from the deists who founded the United States. Many of them believed in a "watchmaker God," who had wound up the earth and let it run, but who could or would not intervene in its affairs--indeed, who might well be indifferent to those affairs. What that means is that it's up to us to treat each other with kindness and respect, and we can't and shouldn't do it because we will be rewarded or punished in the afterlife, or because we have been transported by some religious experience. We should just do it because it's the right thing to do.

[Skyceman]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I'm not so sure of that. Most atheists I know, myself included, were once believers, having been raised in the religious traditions of their parents/family. Because of that, most atheists have an "insider's perspective" on what it is like to be a religious person. I'm not sure that the vice versa is true, that is, I don't know many (or any, for that matter) religious people who understand the perspective of a non-believer.

Well, I am a believer from the "opposite side" so they do exist, Hare. I wasn't raised in a Christian home either - far more liberal. I did spend some time in the Catholic system growing up but it was never forced on me which suited me fine as I did not have any interest in it whatsoever. I was an atheist and content with that perspective. I also have a very firm footing in what it feels like to laugh and mock the "religious" people as they were an easy target for me and I don't need to look very far through this thread to find evidence for that. I can definetly understand those who disbelieve as I was certain to make the same judgements but now I am the target too. I often think of the apostle Paul who slaughtered many a Christians and then turned around to face the very same persecutions he once dolled out because he became a believer. Why? I think unless you have a real paradigm shift or a challenge to your core beliefs its very hard to "see" from a religious or spiritual perspective as to why they become what they do. I think T.S. Eliot nailed it in this quote:

"We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

One thing is for certain is that we all share the same road called life. Some of us on this very board may well become believers one day while others may fall away from it entirely or not change at all. I just think we all need to try and learn from one another and put away the judgements. If we're all too busy judging then we're not truly understanding or growing and that's the biggest loss of all. I have hope. I've seen people grow and share vulnerable sides to themselves on this board and it didn't matter if they were religious or atheist, black or white. No, all that mattered was that they were an individual seeking acceptance and understanding - something we all seek deep down within every one of us.

Anyways, I think I've blabbed on enough and I'm not sure I really got my point across. I'll close with a quote by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin that I think says alot:

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."

[photon]

Originally Posted by peter12

I don't believe I did that at all. Do you believe that a non-believer can understand something that requires belief?

I think you did, you said that a non-believer can never understand a truly religious experience; that's a blanket statement about a group of people. I think that a non-believer CAN understand, because many of them used to believe. I know exactly what it is like since I spent a large part of my life doing it, and it's only now that I'm struggling with the various questions and issues.

I think your point that discussing individual points directly with people rather than making a blanket argument against "religious people" is valid (though the arguments against religion as a whole are very reasoned and are equally valid). And I think it goes the other way too; rather than saying a whole group of people cannot understand something, you have to treat them the same way you want to be treated.

As for religious experience becoming a sort of prologue to belief... I think that the process is far more complicated than that. I personally don't want to talk about my own personal experiences on this message-board, it too often becomes a subject of mockery.

Any personal experience that is powerful enough to change a life should be strong enough to withstand random attacks, but I can understand why you wouldn't want to share something personal on a public forum. I wasn't really talking about an individual experience though, I was talking in general.

So many people I talk to say they have faith, but then point to real experiences to support their faith (they felt a presence, heard a voice, saw a vision, whatever). That their way of thinking is based on a real experience (real to them at least) precludes faith!

Or if you define faith as a mash of trust and belief as some seem to (I've heard the analogy of comparing faith and the trust you put in an airplane pilot), then it gets back to my original point, why do some people merit special attention from God? Why does Paul get knocked off his horse?

God would know exactly what it would take to change my (and others') mind. So either He does it for them and not for me (in which case God is capricious), He's waiting for something to do His work on me (which is fine I guess, I've been waiting a long time, I can wait some more), or God isn't the personal God I was raised to believe (in which case it doesn't matter).

Anyway, random thoughts.