Babies, bathwater, and atheism (or, a defence of intellectual faith)

[Archangel]

Yep, it's that time again. GMF Philo needs a religion thread.




How would you feel if someone told you that football, hell, every team sport was a stupid, useless waste of time because there are too many commercials during NFL games? And when you told him about how every nation on earth celebrated team sports, that literally billions of people enjoy soccer, basketball, baseball etc, he would say that that's only because those billions are all stupid, that enjoying sports is against man's very nature, that there are commercial breaks during all of those sports, that sports fandom leads to violence, that sports are all about controlling the populace, and that because he renounced sports, he is better and smarter than all of them, you included?


You'd call him a pompous dickhead, and rightfully so.


So why are we letting Dawkins, Hitchens etc get away with the very same sodding thing?

What irks me about them the most isn't the fact that they criticise certain aspects of my faith. They are very much encouraged to do so, because it is only through criticism, both from within and without, that schools of thought can advance. Nietzsche is one of my favourite thinkers, and he criticised the living shit out of Christianity. Philosophies and religions that aren't constantly put in doubt become stagnant and obsolete. Look at Islam or Evangelicalism. Blind adherence to dogma kills any thought, and the school that comes with it. And with hundreds of competing schools of thought, the one with the dumbest adherents dies out. Evolution, I believe it's called.

No, what pisses me off is that they throw the baby out with the bathwater and then say that the baby was never there in the first place. I don't criticise their observations, per se; many of them are indeed quite correct. What I criticise are the frankly ridiculous conclusions that are drawn from those observations.

So you're telling me that a large part of organised religion is a load of bullshit.

What do you want, a fucking medal? Everybody knows that, and those whose faith is strongest are usually the most aware of it. Why do you think that Jesus had it up to here with the Jewish scholars of His day? Why do you think that Luther decided, as an Augustine sodding monk, that Catholicism couldn't go on like that anymore?

But to spin that fact into the notion that faith itself, or any form of metaphysics, is not valid, or in their words, "false", is the greatest example of mental hubris I've come across. As I said: Of course there are a lot of things wrong with professional sports, but to use those faults to state that it is unnatural to enjoy them, or that people who follow them are in some way inferior to oneself is just fucking retarded.


Another favourite argument of theirs is that religion is a human construct, hence "false".

Well, duh. What the fuck else should it be?

So bloody what if God is man's creation? Why the hell does that make Him a lie? Nation, liberty, independence, justice, self-determination, individualism, are ALL man's creations, and people believe in those things just as fervently as any religious person believes in God, with the exact same consequences, both good and bad. Every human idea can be used for any purpose, from the greatest to the most vile.
They talk about how religion caused wars and suffering: People's belief in the far more ephemeral, far less basic, and indeed "false" concepts of "racial superiority" and "social equality" killed, oh, 200 million people in the last century alone. The French and American revolutions were bloody affairs indeed, fought for concepts which we still cling to today: So because Robespierre beheaded some people, liberty is a false idol? I don't get it.


Divinity is the apotheosis of a society's values. If you hold love and charity in high regard, you believe in Jesus. If you are all about devotion and service, you believe in Allah and His Prophet, Muhammad. If you believe in serenity and compassion, you believe in Buddha. If you believe in the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you believe in the United States of America. It's the EXACT SAME bloody mechanism at work. Your Constitution = my Gospels. A given society personifies its paramount principles into one book, one figure, one belief structure.


I am religious primarily not because I believe in God, but because I believe in man. I believe in man's ability to think, to create, to inspire and be inspired. I honestly have no idea who or what created the universe, or what comes after death: What awes me, however, is the fact that people were able to come up with something like Christianity. Or Buddhism. Or platonism, for that matter. All-encompassing constructs of thought that try to make sense of the world. This is why I'm a Christian: Through the figure of the Son of Man, mankind celebrates itself. The divinity, the myth, the legend are all of secondary importance. The paradigmatic significance of Christianity is the exaltation of humanity - to take the platonic idea of man, and declare that to be the ideal towards which we should strive. The Greeks gave human traits to their gods, itself a step up from the vestiges of animal-worship of ancient Egypt: Christianity went a huge step further in declaring the aggregate facets of the human spirit, with love at their pinnacle, to be the very essence of divinity. To be human is to be divine. I mean, wow.

So why, again, should I not believe in God because God is a human idea? If He were anything but, why should we believe in Him?

Why do you think that religion is so closely tied to art? Because both are quintessential expressions of a part of the human experience. Poetry, painting, sculpture, music - they all spring from the same well as our need to believe does. It is why every culture on this planet started carving statues and painting pictures of the things they worshipped. We, as, humans, NEED to believe. We, as humans, NEED to express those beliefs through art, whether it is Eugène Delacroix depicting a personified Liberty Leading the People, Phidias sculpting a 40-foot statue of Zeus, or Beethoven composing the 9th.

But no.

All of these are of no value whatsoever.

The prophets of empirism say that nothing that cannot be measured or put in formulae has any value. That to try and explain the world from a metaphysical perspective (because that's all that religion is, an attempt at explaining things) is a waste of time.
The thing is, empirism isn't, strictly speaking, human. The pure observation of phenomena is something that in a different or diminished capacity, animals and computers can do, as well. I'm not denying its importance and its role in human existence; however, to declare the least human of our faculties to be the only one seems to be, well, limiting. Knowing that the earth revolves around the sun doesn't make us human. Being grateful for it does.
As far as I'm concerned, the tree never fell. To me, the human perspective is all that counts. And when every civilisation, every tribe in the world believes, that, to me (anthropologically), is a pretty clear indicator that we are creatures of faith.
It's not about what or how we believe; as I said before, that is very much open to interpretation and critique. It's about the fact THAT we believe. And when 6 billion people do, it's actually and manifestly empirically idiotic for a few million to say that that is unnatural. Most sheep are white. Fucking deal with it.


I mean, we are pretty fucking great, aren't we? We built St Peter's and the Taj Mahal. We painted the Venus of Urbino and wrote The Tempest. We sculpted the Pietà Rondanini and Giorgia Palmas's tits. We composed the St Matthew Passion and Let It Be. We ran the 100 metres in under 10 seconds and dunked on Mutombo. And yes, we split the atom, cured polio and went to the moon. And yes, we created awesome structures of ideas to try and make sense of it all, all of them right in many ways and wrong in others.



Bloody hell, WE CREATED GOD. How amazing is that?

[Axel]

"I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith."

~ Immanuel Kant (was not a cunt)

[Archangel]

"I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith."

~ Immanuel Kant (was not a cunt)

Hell, his name means "God is with us"...

[halfabubbleoff]

Arch, I want so desperately to start a heated debate on this, but I agree with almost everything you said. Not fair!

You did miss one hipocracy that many people engage in during this debate. People who decry religion normally have the same "blind faith" in science. They ignore the same flaws in science that they point to in religion. Both are attempts to understand and place the natural world in perspective. They just use different perspectives to do so.

I am dumbfounded by some of these ideas. There are lunatics on both sides. On a personal level, I was once told that I was "destined for Hell" because I choose to believe in evolution.

As in all things, the key is taking a balanced view. I feel you did that in the OP. It is possible to believe in God and science. The two are not mutually exclusive. Anyone to believes differently has my pitty.



Here's hoping we can get a lively debate going on this thread. Religion and Politics = my 2 favorite topics! We already have a whole forum deicated to Politics, so this takes care of the other half.

[feith]

A Letter to a Christian Nation. - Sam Harris.


Educate yourself.

[Mr. Brown]

you should learn to use hyper links

[freegood]

The critics argument of wasting time carries a "time is money" slant to things. Intellectual faith is a difficult line to discuss today. After all we've have 7 years of a moron telling us that his gut feeling compels him to be the judge and decider on issues he's clueless in. If we had a net President to embody its people's attributes, that would be Bush.

I'm not sure many people are up for that challenge. Can one be a part of the flock while keeping an independent mind? That might be the ideal, what is sold, or what a person convinces himself. Then again arch, the group where your appeal falls flat is the exact same crowd that sees things in black and white. Whether you're with us or against us. Whether you should believe out of fear or discredit out of pride. There is no middle ground.

Maybe it is human nature to have this attribute; that it is part and parcel with society coping with religion. Religion is a way of life to people and a culture to many. Are we fighting one culture war, or is a part of an unending culture war, with several fronts and several fires to stomp? You end one battle only to unravel another, like some marathon capture the flag tournament. Should you appeal to peace, reason, or decency to an unending fight? That's something each person has to answer themselves.

But here's a reason why you should and that it isn't a waste of time to think just a little bit more. If you don't, then your religion, something some people take on to make sense out of their lives, will take a life on its own with the same qualities (good and bad) it was designed to address.

[zillionaire]

I've had a running conversation for the past 12 years with my boss, a rigid right-wing, Southern Baptist, along these lines. He once explained to me that the very essence of faith means that one believes, regardless of the 'facts'. His standard out, when I start pulling out too many of those facts, is 'I'm not smart enough to debate this with you, but I know what I believe'.

I really envy such a simple, trusting faith. I wish I had it, but I was born with a questioning, reasoning mind. Too many aspects of too many religions, the religion of science included, resonate with truth to me; the 'I believe in everything, nothing is sacred' effect. (Yes, I quoted Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.) More than religion itself, I love the idea of religion. I want to surrender my life completely in love and devotion like the Muslims, to live a life of charity and compassion like Christ compelled us. But I can't get rid of that voice in my head that keeps reminding me that I am an animal, an anomaly of evolution, a big-brained happy accident. I consider myself a spiritual person regardless. No matter what logic, reason, common sense tells me, religion is a lovely part of the human experience. I can't play music, but I love it anyway. It's the same thing.

(Dear Rest of the World, please do not judge us by our Southern Baptists. Christianity in America isn't all snake-handling and Republicans.)

[Morfin]

I, the atheist, will bite on this one. I have read Hitchens; I have not read Dawkins.

My take-away from Hitchens is that there is no God and look at all the foolishness perpetrated in God's name. I agree with this whole-heartedly. What I do not agree with is the proposition that certain religions are absurd, therefore there is no God. Case in point. I find Mormonism to be a silly construct made up by a con man, and not a very good con man at that. But that is as far as it goes -- it does not affect by belief that there is no higher power.

As I said at the beginning, I am an atheist -- not an agnostic: I do not believe in a higher power.

With that being said, I concede that the most powerful argument against this, to me, is the fact that some extremely intelligent people believe there is a higher power. I do wonder: How can these smart people be so wrong?

What really bugs me is the way that organized religions prey on people in terms of guilt and money. I am not a fan of the Catholic Church and I abhor the Mormons, Scientologists, Jim Bakker, Swaggert, and those ilk. I am not familiar enough with all religions to tar all of them with a broad brush, nor do I tar all of their followers because many, many are good people trying to live a good life (i.e. fundamental Muslims vs. normal Muslims).

As to the question of "faith." Of course this is a human construct. And I have no problem with people believing what they want, especially to the end of them leading a good life. I try to live what I believe to be a good life. So does my wife, the staunch Catholic, but her motivation, besides mine of doing what is "right" and "good," is the desire to make it into Heaven.

Whenever I think of faith, I think of PF Flyers. For those of you who did not grow up in the Sixties, PF Flyers were canvas sneakers. They had a wedge of red rubber on the side, near the small toe. The commercials said that this wedge made you run faster and jump higher. Now, we all know that it didn't do those things -- it was just a stupid piece of rubber. But if you believed it did, then more power to you.

Thus, the PF Flyer principle of faith. If believing in a higher power makes you feel better and lead a better life, then go for it -- regardless of whether that faith will get you into heaven (as my wife believes) or does not (as I believe). If you believe it, that's fine with me.

Now, to wrap this up. Hitchens' opinions are close to mine in that he detests organized religion and he is an atheist. My thinking is more libertarian than his -- If you want to believe, go right ahead, it isn't my business. But the argument that organized religion is bad, therefore, there is no God, that is an incorrect and illogical argument.

<Scattered applause from those who have not left.> Okay, now I will take questions from the class.

[freegood]

Having faith is a game changing mindset and perspective. There's too many unknowns in our lives that doesn't relate to book knowledge...how we'll make rent, how we'll put food on our tables, how we'll live a life without regret.

It goes back into the "waste of time" argument. If you knew that doing something difficult was a waste of time in terms of payoff (success, prestige, enjoyment), most likely you won't be doing it. Women and ethnic minorities were told they were too stupid to work or do things dominated by white men. It wasn't until the last 60 years that those groups held enough professional positions to break that mold. There are several millionaires who had nothing but their own dreams or convictions to take an easy idea and make shit ton money out of it.

Hitchens sees the nastiness of religion and his revulsion of human nature spills over in his book's anecdotal evidence. But it's a package deal to me. Some people are content to have another source give the answers to them rather than using that source (among others) as a basis to question more. I guess in a sense, it's placing one type of faith above another. Yet it's a limiting and potentially dangerous kind of faith. What kind of life it is to live where the person shuts doors on himself?

[Archangel]

A Letter to a Christian Nation. - Sam Harris.


Educate yourself.

Hyperlink fail aside, that was posted on the old boards (and quite a thread resulted from it): still stupid and closed-minded. I educate myself reading the stuff that actually SMART people wrote. Dunno, Aquinas or Bernard of Clairvaux. Schopenhauer.

I've had a running conversation for the past 12 years with my boss, a rigid right-wing, Southern Baptist, along these lines. He once explained to me that the very essence of faith means that one believes, regardless of the 'facts'. His standard out, when I start pulling out too many of those facts, is 'I'm not smart enough to debate this with you, but I know what I believe'.

I really envy such a simple, trusting faith.

Blind faith is dumb faith. "Credo in unum Deum" and "dubium sapientiae initium" can very much co-exist. Doubt, and the resulting curiosity, is a natural aspect of faith. If there is a God, and he gave you the gift of reasoning, you're supposed to use it. I mean, Jesus and Paul are philosophers, first and foremost.

My problem with organised religion is that it took such a simple, basic message as Christ's and built about 15 million layers of bullshit around it, the worst being dogma. As I said, blind adherence to anything leads to stagnation.

[Morfin]

My problem with organised religion is that it took such a simple, basic message as Christ's and built about 15 million layers of bullshit around it, the worst being dogma.

I thought "Dogma" was a great film -- funny, good message, and relevant to this thread.

[Archetype]

There are a couple things I've been noticing about the underlying reasons why people, specifically kids around my age, are venturing atheist.

One is, they want answers. They don't want intellectual growth. They want solid, definable, solutions. Something that will get them somewhere. The simple reason being fear of the unknown; fear in general. Totally understandable. Like it's been mentioned before, the Church employed the use of dogma, solid, absolute, unquestionable, universal truth, to sate that part of us. But as science progressed, the Leonardos and the Descartes, they questioned the validity of dogma, yada yada, we all know the story, Protestant reformation, scientific revolution, and in a lot of ways, "The Church" caused it's own decline through it's advocations of rationalism, naturalism, and universal truths, mixed with the corruption of power.

The other thing I've noticed, through Tolstoy, is the issue of context. Anyone who's gone through confirmation knows exactly what I'm talking about, the bible, Catholicism, Christianity in general, it's just irrelevant. It's applicable to modern times, but the energy it takes to adapt it is so severe, that nobody even bothers to read the bible anymore, let alone pay attention when the pastor or priest or nun or worse yet, their conservative parents who don't even half-understand what they're talking about, babble about hell and angels. I find it incredibly interesting, but I'm half-insane and had the time to seriously delve into the meanings. Freegood already talked about this in both of his posts, it just consumes so much time and effort, that, well, why? This modern en masse ADD, judge a book by it's cover, time is money, does it have pretty colours, mindset. Fuck you if you can't catch my attention immediately. Oooo, shiny metal...

[iolas]

I'm an atheist because no one can answer my question good enough.

Which is...What's the fucking point of believing in god(s)?

[freegood]

I'm an atheist because no one can answer my question good enough.

Which is...What's the fucking point of believing in god(s)?

Because your life sucks?

[iolas]

Because your life sucks?


My life is great. In fact, I am happier now than when I was a believer.

[Archangel]

I'm an atheist because no one can answer my question good enough.

Which is...What's the fucking point of believing in god(s)?

And what the fuck does that have to do with the topic of this thread?

Apparently, you're an atheist because you're illiterate.

[Insomniac]

"Science and religion are two of the most potent forces on Earth and they should come together to save the creation." - E.O. Wilson

[iolas]

And what the fuck does that have to do with the topic of this thread?

Apparently, you're an atheist because you're illiterate.


Oh no. I actually read your OP 2 times. It just amazes me the amount of bullshit you can write.

[Archetype]

So it's the comprehension part.

[iolas]

So it's the comprehension part.

I get what he is trying to say. I just laugh at his attempts to justify his Christianity.

[Archetype]

Uh, yeah, reading comprehension.

[AJ]

http://yogan.meinungsverstaerker.de/fun/Bible_-_Pics_or_it_didnt_happen.jpg

[Archetype]

I want that bible.

[feith]

[quote=Archangel;92961]Hyperlink fail aside, that was posted on the old boards (and quite a thread resulted from it): still stupid and closed-minded. I educate myself reading the stuff that actually SMART people wrote. Dunno, Aquinas or Bernard of Clairvaux. Schopenhauer.



Sam Harris is currently studing neuroscience, at Stanford University.

but yea i guess he's not smart.

[TheImpossibleMan]

arch's #1 problem is that he doesn't seem to realize that geniuses - I mean geniuses - can do, say, think, and believe stupid things.

[Archetype]

Intelligence is only relevant to your specific field.

[Archangel]

I get what he is trying to say. I just laugh at his attempts to justify his Christianity.

I laugh at the idea of you laughing at me.

Seriously, you posting here is like me posting in the NHL threads. You're proving everything freegood has said. Thanks.


Sam Harris is currently studing neuroscience, at Stanford University.

but yea i guess he's not smart.

Umm...

arch's #1 problem is that he doesn't seem to realize that geniuses - I mean geniuses - can do, say, think, and believe stupid things.

What he said. Cheers, TiM, for proving my point so eloquently.

Also, wow. He studies at a big university. Amazing.

Woman, I'm in academia myself. If you're gonna be impressed by the fact that someone has a college degree, this discussion is not for you. 80% of professors I know are functional idiots.

Nietzsche was smart. Dawkins? Harris? Pfft.


I mean, neuroscience? So what the fuck qualifies him to talk about metaphysics with any authority? Has he read the Nicomachaean Ethics? Timaeus? Dante's Comedy? I have no idea.

I'm a pretty clever bloke, but I am humble enough not to spew bullshit about things I know jack about. When I see these gentlemen with a copy of the Summa Theologica or De Civitate Dei in their hands, I'll grant them some measure of authority.
Until that point, I stay out of your fields, you stay the fuck out of mine.

[Archetype]

Where is Augustine now? Where is our Dante? Is someone writing a new Summa Theologica? Maybe we should adapt it into a feature film? I think the, or rather a, problem is that, even though someone like Dawkins will dismiss metaphysics, it's still a fundamental part of the human psyche/faculties, yet there isn't really anyone relevant that's talking about it that isn't a Dawkins. Or a Robertson...or Mike from Growing Pains. So you have intelligent religious scholars, but they're either entrenched in their academia, or stuck "preaching to the choir." Being irrelevant isn't so bad, but there's two sides, you're either so relevant you're lcd, or you're so irrelevant you're outright invisible. And it seems like in modernity, Christianity is teetering on both extremes. The thing I don't totally get is: why? Or do we have some real prophets that I just don't know about?

[Archangel]

Benedict is a pretty smart guy.

[Archetype]

But he's the Pope. People both revere and disregard him on those exact grounds.

[AJ]

arch's #1 problem is that he doesn't seem to realize that geniuses - I mean geniuses - can do, say, think, and believe stupid things.

Arch's #1 problem is way worse than that.

[lusonico]

So why are we letting Dawkins, Hitchens etc get away with the very same sodding thing?


I've observed that some fans of Dawkins which i've had the pleasure of aguing with seem to revolve around this abstract notion of "reason" wich they claim to be so much superior to faith, but are unable to see that they are only engaging in some kind of naturalism/determinism in a very dogmatic way, in other words, a FAITH.


What irks me about them the most isn't the fact that they criticise certain aspects of my faith. They are very much encouraged to do so, because it is only through criticism, both from within and without, that schools of thought can advance. Nietzsche is one of my favourite thinkers, and he criticised the living shit out of Christianity. Philosophies and religions that aren't constantly put in doubt become stagnant and obsolete. Look at Islam or Evangelicalism. Blind adherence to dogma kills any thought, and the school that comes with it. And with hundreds of competing schools of thought, the one with the dumbest adherents dies out. Evolution, I believe it's called.


I agree, we are witnessing the rise of more sofisticated dogmas, made to fit the pop culture fashion. They don't even need to be too smart to convince the masses, it's more of exploring the already existing feelings against religion, a popularity contest no less.

With that being said, I concede that the most powerful argument against this, to me, is the fact that some extremely intelligent people believe there is a higher power. I do wonder: How can these smart people be so wrong?

String theory was once a joke and now is present at every major university. Top physists are now talking about 11 possible dimensions, we are still to realize fully how narrow our perception of reality is, but we can take a hint, can't we? It's way soon for us to cast God out, just because our early interpretations of nature were atributed to God intents and later we found out there was this thing called physics, chemistry, biology, etc... Does not mean God isn't out there (or in here) there are still huge misteries about ourselves, life, the world and the Universe, and altough science can gives us a hand, it sure does not mean God is not in the picture.

All in all, i really think a world without God will be far worse than the one we have now, because as Archangel has said, religion is a fundamental aspect of the human being (including atheists) and the only way to cut that out is supressing it by force. Now it's all Dawkings hype, joking and ridicularizing others faiths, but what happens if society as a whole shares Dawkings values about how dangerous and harmfull religion is to the world? What kind of treatment and actions will the crowds justify against christians, budhists and son on? After all, they're "dangerous".

[Morfin]

All in all, i really think a world without God will be far worse than the one we have now, because as Archangel has said, religion is a fundamental aspect of the human being (including atheists) and the only way to cut that out is supressing it by force. Now it's all Dawkings hype, joking and ridicularizing others faiths, but what happens if society as a whole shares Dawkings values about how dangerous and harmfull religion is to the world? What kind of treatment and actions will the crowds justify against christians, budhists and son on? After all, they're "dangerous".

I must take issue with this last paragraph of your post. I think you are mistaking the difference between what the World would be like without God and what the World would be like without people believing in God.

As I said in my first post in this thread, if people want to believe in God and that is their basis for acting good -- because there will be a reward in the afterlife -- more power to 'em. That is the PF Flyer principle.

But I take exception to your premise that a world without God would be anarchic. I don't believe in God, but I still follow rules, laws, and try to be a generally good person. I do not believe that there are all sorts of people in the world who would be raping and pillaging but for the fact that they believe in God.

Finally, as to your mention of String theory, I do not believe that it is an apt example. The fact that few people used to believe in String theory as the key to a Universal Theory of All Forces and that now more people believe, doesn't make the theory itself more or less valid -- it merely makes it more or less accepted. Cutting to the bare bones: the theory is either correct or it isn't and we, at our current level of knowledge, cannot prove it true or disprove it. The limitation is that pesky issue of the multiple dimensions (I had thought it was 10, but if you say 11, who am I to quibble).

Applying that to religion, the fact that billions of people believe in a higher power does give me some pause, especially, as I put in my first post, where people whose intelligence I respect have that belief. However, the number of people who believe does not change the underlying question: Is there a higher power? There either is or isn't, like String Theory, we just don't have that level of knowledge yet (and may never have it).

[Archangel]

I don't know about that.


There are studies that among the working and middle class in Germany, East Germans, whose country denied the existence of any moral authority, are more likely to commit violent crimes than their counterparts in the West. Look at the Russian Mafia, too.

[halfabubbleoff]

I have to point out that there is a flaw in your thinking there, Arch.

Using locations under former Soviet control isn't the best illustration of your idea. I would submit that it isn't the lack of moral authority that ties into the violent behavior, but a statement to the society they were in. You could use the same argument to say that China is more violent. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

There was a large organized crime infrastructure in the former Soviet Union. It also held a lot of influence with the working class, who felt that they were being held back by the State. That environment could have a lot to do with it as well.

I would lean more to the idea that it was not a denial of moral authority, but the wrong morals having authority. We had similar issues with lower income working class people in the United States as well. During the height of the Mob and Mafia, entire neighborhoods would rally to protect known killers and criminals. That was mainly because those people saw organized crime paying more attention to their needs than their own (usually corrupt) government. You can see variations on that theme around the world. Whichever group benefits the populace more, is the one who's values persevere among that populace.

Then again, I have never seen the studies and (unfortunately), never set foot on European soil. So, I have no idea what I am talking about, and this could all be a load of rubbish.

[lusonico]

I must take issue with this last paragraph of your post. I think you are mistaking the difference between what the World would be like without God and what the World would be like without people believing in God.

Respectfully, i know you can't tell the difference either, simply because we are still not in that point where we could observe a world where nobody believes in God (we got some examples and hints tough). Since we can't know for sure if there is a God, then to observe a world without God is still no possible either, people just say it is, but what they really should say is "apparently His presence is not evident", we just aren't aware of Him, since there's still too much we don't know, too much uncharted territory where He could still pop out clearly and unequivocally for our conscient intelects.

As I said in my first post in this thread, if people want to believe in God and that is their basis for acting good -- because there will be a reward in the afterlife -- more power to 'em. That is the PF Flyer principle.

So you don't believe in "God" but you believe there is something called "good". They are both constructions, beliefs, religions or value systems if you like. Does not mean that there is not a REAL entity responsible for creating the Universe, just means the first attempt to establish an explanation may have gotten filled and surrounded by very human like constructions, like fables and the very palpable values attached to them. (i'm trying to explain something who is somewhat clear to me but i don't know if i'm managing to pass the idea properly, talking and writing are different from just thinking about it)


But I take exception to your premise that a world without God would be anarchic.

To only way to have a world without "God" is to supress the idea of God itself, and that would be bad indeed. Classifying religious people as deluded is a step forward to do that, to forge the opressive dictatorship of determinism in wich people beliefs are discarted and considered dangerous. Did you ever saw a film called "Gattaca"? In this film everybody is discriminated genetically, does not matter if they believe they can make it in a job, free will and equal opportunity don't matter, why let people try? Science determines what your genetic capabilities are, so the very rational system makes the decisions for you and puts you in your place. Now, this is what Dawkings does, it mocks at human nature and spirit itself and pushes furthermore for that machine reasoning, all logic, that's the message, if you're not "logic" you're "little people" and we pitty you for sure, we recognize your rigth to be a deluded and give you a pat in the back. It's irritanting and patronizing, just like a kid trying to rule the playground when he is no different than anybody else there. Dawkings is just a human being, and science is just a pair of clutches to help us in our path, not to RULE us.

I don't believe in God, but I still follow rules, laws, and try to be a generally good person. I do not believe that there are all sorts of people in the world who would be raping and pillaging but for the fact that they believe in God.

I'm agnostic, i don't know if God is out there, i give it 50-50.
Like i said i'm more worried about the anti-religious movement, because it only damages the most peacefull religions like christians, budhists, etc... Does not make a dent in a religion like islam. So not all religions are alike and the fact is that being western you got more of christian in you than you know or care to admitt. That "generally good" passed upon you by your parents and close relatives comes in good part from the christian values, even i, a non-religious, non-church-goer have no problem to admitt that western governments are secular versions of christianity, but they are loosing that background in favour of more "liberal" pressure groups with brand new ideologies, more inclined to the satisfaction of the individual as the most important thing above all else... This is way too dense of a subject and i see to have written too much already, but i´ll say once again, that we are "all" judeo-christians to some extent, and christianity is a bastion to many rapidilly eroding values, and i'm happy to know it is still there, for any of us free people to look upon if we will.

Finally, as to your mention of String theory, I do not believe that it is an apt example. The fact that few people used to believe in String theory as the key to a Universal Theory of All Forces and that now more people believe, doesn't make the theory itself more or less valid -- it merely makes it more or less accepted. Cutting to the bare bones: the theory is either correct or it isn't and we, at our current level of knowledge, cannot prove it true or disprove it. The limitation is that pesky issue of the multiple dimensions (I had thought it was 10, but if you say 11, who am I to quibble).

Remember, you wrote:
With that being said, I concede that the most powerful argument against this, to me, is the fact that some extremely intelligent people believe there is a higher power. I do wonder: How can these smart people be so wrong?

I was just pointing out that if smart people can't ever be sure if they're right, than we regular folks should at least be more hesitanting when we say to ourselves "how can they be so wrong?";)


Applying that to religion, the fact that billions of people believe in a higher power does give me some pause, especially, as I put in my first post, where people whose intelligence I respect have that belief. However, the number of people who believe does not change the underlying question: Is there a higher power? There either is or isn't, like String Theory, we just don't have that level of knowledge yet (and may never have it).

It's funny but if humans never had considered God, then probably they would not have gotten very far, as their inquiring capabilities would probably not be the same. If we would follow "Dawkings doctrine" about "reason" and only followed and acted according with what we can verify empirically than i'm affraid we would not have built too much of knowledge for is the power of extrapolating who pushes us forward, that sense of envisioning a future and then getting in FACT to that future. We want to go to other planets because of the things we invision there. Our intuition is as important as the discipline of objectivity, it's a shame Dawking's has made a school out of cutting this part out of us. You see, he is helping to draw a line we can't cross for fear of ridicule, we can formulate all the hypothesis we want except if we connect the dots to imply there is a "purpose" or "intelligence" behind it because that would take us back to the idea of God and the "delusional people" alert would echo across the room and you would face some laughs.

For instance, intuition. I look at the Universe, i see that 99% is empty and that tiny quantity of matter that exists finds itself aggregated in clumps. What a "convenient" " thing gravity is. In this almost empty universe, there could be one atom here and another one a couple light years away, the Universe could be one cold homegenous place, but it has gravity, so matter clumps and all kinds of interesting stuff can happen! Simple hidrogen atoms can fuse and form all other kind of elements, how simple and "convenient"!

Well, i can't be sure of anything, i'll give it 50-50, i think it's better and wiser than believing without a doubt there is nothing else out there... But the point is we should stop pretending we could live just with pure logic and facts, because not even those we can be sure to nail in a accurate way.

[Archangel]

I have to point out that there is a flaw in your thinking there, Arch.

Using locations under former Soviet control isn't the best illustration of your idea. I would submit that it isn't the lack of moral authority that ties into the violent behavior, but a statement to the society they were in. You could use the same argument to say that China is more violent. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Yeah, but China never was a Christian society, so you simply cannot know. East Germany was the home of Bach and Luther.

There was a large organized crime infrastructure in the former Soviet Union. It also held a lot of influence with the working class, who felt that they were being held back by the State. That environment could have a lot to do with it as well.


Strike the Russian Mafia example. I was talking about people from the suburbs popping out ten children and burying them in their front yard.


I would lean more to the idea that it was not a denial of moral authority, but the wrong morals having authority. We had similar issues with lower income working class people in the United States as well. During the height of the Mob and Mafia, entire neighborhoods would rally to protect known killers and criminals. That was mainly because those people saw organized crime paying more attention to their needs than their own (usually corrupt) government. You can see variations on that theme around the world. Whichever group benefits the populace more, is the one who's values persevere among that populace.

Then again, I have never seen the studies and (unfortunately), never set foot on European soil. So, I have no idea what I am talking about, and this could all be a load of rubbish.

As I said, the Russian Mafia was a bad example. Sicily is totally Catholic, and those mother fuckers can act like animals.

What I meant that we now have about 1/5 of our population that didn't grow up with the same moral compass as the others did. And a lot of the most atrocious shit you hear, it's people who were raised in the East, people who were told that there was no afterlife, no judgement, that right and wrong were tools of political pragmatism; people who dind't hold compassion to be the highest of values.

Now even if you believe that religion is just a con to make people behave in a civilised manner, you have to admit that its absence can create a vacuum.

[Feng]

How would you feel if someone told you that football, hell, every team sport was a stupid, useless waste of time

I'd feel vindicated! Football, hell, every team sport is bloody lame! Stick and ball games are for children.

[Archangel]

Somebody's cruising for a negging.

[TheImpossibleMan]

If we invented god, then who are you praying to?

[Morfin]

I won't respond to all this for two reasons: First, I am lazy and to do so would take some effort. Second, because neither side can be proved/disproved right or wrong, at some point, we have to agree to disagree.

There is just one item I will choose to respond to:

So you don't believe in "God" but you believe there is something called "good". They are both constructions, beliefs, religions or value systems if you like.


I am not saying that there is a notion of "good," I am saying that I am trying to live what I consider a good life. To me, that consists of being a responsible citizen, father, and husband, according to my society's laws, morals, and mores.

I am not sufficiently learned to know which of the philosphers discussed the concept of a natural law and what is right. You or Arch can help with that. And I do understand that the notion that a person should not kill another person must have come from somewhere with the natural follow-up question being "From where?"

For my money, I do not believe in a higher power. And as one of my professors liked to say, "I may be wrong, but I'm never in doubt." That's my belief here.

[Archangel]

If we invented god, then who are you praying to?

You really don't get it, do you.

[iolas]

If we invented god, then who are you praying to?


Good question.

[Morfin]

Good question.

No, it isn't.

See: http://forum.gorillamask.net/showthread.php?t=6279

[iolas]

No, it isn't.

See: http://forum.gorillamask.net/showthread.php?t=6279


Yeah. I read that. I'm surprised someone can fit that much bullshit in one post.

[Morfin]

Maybe Arch will help you out next time and either 1) add pictures; or 2) put in an executive summary. Maybe he'll even throw in a dictionary for those multi-syllable words that mess you up.

[Archetype]

Or maybe next time someone will just masturbate instead of getting a hooker pregnant?

[Morfin]

Or maybe next time someone will just masturbate instead of getting a hooker pregnant?

Hey. Hey. This isn't the Sarah Palin thread and her daughter is off limits.

[Phil Theehor]

You really don't get it, do you.


Arch, that question hits on something that I was going to ask you to clarify, as well.

I understand the point you make in your OP, that it does not matter that God is a human creation-- and that us creating Him does not diminish His value nor does it diminish the benefits of faith. I get it. I agree.

What you don't mention (or maybe you did and I didn't pick it up) is this: Do you practice some form of Christianity? Do you kneel and pray and take communion? Do you attempt to interact with God they way that Christianity asks you to do so?

You see, I have trouble with this. I mostly believe in God, not so much the parables (and some days more than others). However, the thought that we created God is a real possibility. In fact, my eyes tell me that it is probably true. However, I do manage to put this aside when I practice. I want there to be an Almighty and there is certainly a chance that there is, so I push forward. And regardless of His existence as a real being, I do see the value of faith.

But the question, then, of "who are you praying to?" is indeed a valid one, if you take the stance that God is purely a human construct.

You (and others) have mentioned other human constructs that people hold dear (and will fight and die for), such as Liberty, Equality, Democracy, etc. I see the point-- that even though we made them, they are still real (and awesome). I agree.

But the parallel ends here: I've never addressed Democracy directly. I've never thanked Liberty for my good fortune (although, I suppose I should). I've never asked Equality to help me find my car keys. People do these things with God all day long.

If I follow your logic correctly, your response is that prayer is its own end-- that merely the exercise of expressing gratitude for what you have and asking for good things to happen to those in need carries its own benefit to the practitioner. And again, I would agree with that.

However, if you believe that God is a human construct, can you worship Him? Or can worship be separated from faith?

[halfabubbleoff]

...
If I follow your logic correctly, your response is that prayer is its own end-- that merely the exercise of expressing gratitude for what you have and asking for good things to happen to those in need carries its own benefit to the practitioner. And again, I would agree with that.

However, if you believe that God is a human construct, can you worship Him? Or can worship be separated from faith?


I'm not Arch, but I am going to chime in here anyway.

When you get down to it, most of the world is described in terms of human constructs. God (Divinity) is no different. I see it as a need to personify the deep belief that something is in control of the universe and nature. We feel driven to understand the world around us, to categorize it, and find a meaning behind it all. Even science is a human construct. You have to look no farther than biology to see how we have categorized every animal we encounter into groups that we created in the first place. It is all an attempt to pull order out of chaos.

That is a lot of what belief in a divine power does as well. Every society has had its god(s) or controlling forces that maintain the natural order and insure the world runs in the way it should. That belief is what allows us to understand our environment and insure ourselves that it isn't all just random. There has to be some order to things. There has to be something in control to make sure that lizards don't mate with kangaroos or that the sun rises and falls.

That is where the human construct of God comes in. Humans feel the need to name things. If it has a name, it can be categorized and understood. Just because humans named it, doesn't make it any less valid. Gravity is a construct if you want to take that view. You can argue that gravity can be measured and proven scientifically, where Divine Power cannot. Some would argue that point, since God is the force that insures gravity stays constant, proving gravity would prove that God is on the job and working to keep things as they should be.

So, if you hold to the view that the construct "God" is the human attempt to understand the force that insures the order and stability of nature, you are very stable in your belief in prayer. You can very well hold on to your faith and worship God as you see fit. If God was an understandable, universal standard, there would be only one religion. Since God is beyond human understanding, as concepts on that scale are beyond human comprehension, there is an understandable variation in belief. When you look at it closely, though, every religion shares the same core view. There is a Divine Power that is controlling nature and the universe. That power may not be understandable, but just in case it does listen, doesn't it make sense to say "thanks" every now and again?

...if you believe that God is a human construct, can you worship Him?

Yes


...can worship be separated from faith?

Who says it has to be?

[Phil Theehor]

Fair points, all. Let me simplify this:

Worshipping in Christianity involves interaction with God. You believe that somebody is listening. If you believe that God is human contruct, then who do you think is listening?

[Morfin]

Fair points, all. Let me simplify this:

Worshipping in Christianity involves interaction with God. You believe that somebody is listening. If you believe that God is human contruct, then who do you think is listening?

Close, but your logic is off. Let me give it a shot.

Worshipping in Christianity involves interaction with God. If you believe in God, then you believe that God is not a mere human construct, and God is the one listening.

If you do not believe in God, then you believe God is a human construct, and those who are praying are praying to a construct, i.e., no one.

[medicvet87]

all the answers can be found here: www.uua.org (http://www.uua.org)

It fits what I believe perfectly. I didn't even know there was a church that had my same belief system until I attended my first Unitarian Universalist service. The closest one to me now is almost a two hour drive away, but I really want to go to see what that one is like. I liked the ones in Sacramento and Fresno.

EDIT: I have even known of a few atheists who attend to give their children a sense of 'moral and ethical guidance'. Their words, not mine, but I think it is neat. I wish that more people knew about this church...but then again, if more did, then more traditional churches might be more mad at and want to persecute them.

[halfabubbleoff]

Fair points, all. Let me simplify this:

Worshipping in Christianity involves interaction with God. You believe that somebody is listening. If you believe that God is human contruct, then who do you think is listening?


Was this directed to me?

If so:

God is a construct in in the sense that it is our attempt to understand what is beyond our understanding. We have an instinctual knowledge that there is a controlling force, so we constructed God to give us a way to relate to it. Just because we constructed a concept that gives us a method to relate to, and therefore, communicate with that force, does not mean it does not exist.

We constructed a persona so that we could relate to God (that controlling force that maintains the universe). Since that force is so far beyond our understanding, I seriously doubt that it will care what name we give it. God, Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah, Zeus, Odin, Fate, Science etc.... those are just names for the same thing. Just because the name changes, doesn't mean that it no longer exists.

That is who is listening.

[Phil Theehor]

This is like trying to nail Jello to a wall.

Morfin & Bubble, I do see your logic. You both gave good answers based on where you stand on the whole issue. Okie, I'm not clicking on that website because I fear they will try to harvest my kidneys or make me play with snakes.

My question was really directed at Arch, who said in the OP "WE CREATED GOD. How amazing is that?". That's why I asked if he worships, or tries to interact with God as directed by the Church.

If the answer is yes, then I am interested in more explanation because I cannot reconcile the idea of interacting with an abstract human creation.

[halfabubbleoff]

I will have to leave further answers to Arch, then.

I had to respond to the snake handling reference. I grew up near that church. They do indeed, handle snakes and really do drink poison. Most members of the congregation are acually missing parts of fingers due to low grade damage from poison and snakebites.

If it helps, the UUA is much more tame than that. No blood sacrifice (that I know of) and no masses in backward Latin. I don't know much about them and the wiebsite isn't very detailed on thier belief system.

If medicvet87 (http://forum.gorillamask.net/member.php?u=1729) wants to add more details and "witness" to the crowd I would be interested in hearing his take on this whole topic.

[Archangel]

Sorry, I've been busy. Will post more in the future, especially now that I've formatted c: and my computer seems to be working again (fingers crossed).

I'll post more on this later; however, two things first. First of all, I'd like to thank you guys, veterans and more recent additions to GMF alike, for getting a good discussion going.

And second, I'm hereby excluding Iolas from any future discussions on this topic. This is not because he's on the other side of the metaphorical fence - I'd do the same thing to some evangelical twat if he were in here Bible-thumping, and think that Morfin's posts here thus far have been very good - but the guy simply contributes NOTHING to any intelligent discussion, not even some off-topic levity. I don't mind him being unable to comprehend complex metaphysical thought, but I DO mind him being equally unable to understand the Philo section guidelines.

Iolas, if you indeed think that my thread starters are "bullshit" (which, trust me, only shows that you're a retard), then simply show your superiority by abstaining from participating in those discussions. You're free to believe that you're the smartest one here: But please, do so in the company of those who agree.

Here's a list. (http://qualitymirrors.com/)

[Archangel]

This is like trying to nail Jello to a wall.

Morfin & Bubble, I do see your logic. You both gave good answers based on where you stand on the whole issue. Okie, I'm not clicking on that website because I fear they will try to harvest my kidneys or make me play with snakes.

My question was really directed at Arch, who said in the OP "WE CREATED GOD. How amazing is that?". That's why I asked if he worships, or tries to interact with God as directed by the Church.

If the answer is yes, then I am interested in more explanation because I cannot reconcile the idea of interacting with an abstract human creation.





All right then...


This is indeed a complex matter, and I did wonder when someone would bring it up.

However, I do not think that realising the nature of religion and the practice of worship are mutually exclusive. I'll try to explain.

I do consider myself a Catholic. I even go to Mass every now and then. This, however, does not mean that I agree with every tenet of my faith, or that I think that we have exclusivity on metaphysical matters (remember how one of my creeds is to always distrust answers). On the other hand, I am an intellectual, and smart enough to recognise the ritualistic mechanisms of faith; but as Freud said, just because you recognise the roots of a ritual, it doesn't mean that you're free from ritualistic behaviour.

To me, every religion, indeed every school of thought is a small window in a dark room that looks out at a part of the Truth. Some window panes are cleaner than others, and the view is different from each one; but what they have in common is that each, by itself, offers only a small glimpse. The rest is guesswork. To paraphrase Paul, we see very dimly. In a very small mirror. We're looking at raindrops, trying to figure out how the cloud may look like.
If there is serious thought involved in the matter, though, none of these outlooks is "wrong" (again, you can spot the idiots easily by seeing who tries to apply such criteria to these matters), but they're all incomplete, skewed, faulty even.

Me, I like the view from Rome best. But that's me. I prefer Augustine to Ibn Rushd. That's pretty much it.

Now, to worship...

If God is the apotheosis of a culture's highest values, then that means that we basically worship those values through a more concrete figure. In the end, the main difference between religion and "pure" philosophy is this channelling of all that one considers good into an easily comprehensible symbol, or a series thereof.

So as I've said before (http://archive.gorillamask.net/showpost.php?p=2301294&postcount=19), to me, God is the personification and exaltation of the concepts of love and creative force, which I believe to be the most important of human traits. I worship those ideas through the metaphor of divinity. Christianity is a very platonic thing, if you look at it.

And then, of course, there's the figure of Jesus, who - to me - represents the personification of love. As stated previously, if love is God, then isn't a man who lives and breathes love at the expense of everything else ipso facto divine?


I try not to bother God with PlayStation matches and exam grades (100 ranked match wins at Soul Calibur, bitches!), even though I admittedly do fall into that trap. Rituals are a bitch, aren't they? By the way, the pater noster can be read in that very key: You will notice that Jesus prays for nothing that people cannot achieve by themselves, if properly motivated. He doesn't pray for stuff to fall out of the sky, he prays for people to have the strength to do the right thing. It pisses me off that with all the talk about divinity, the anthropocentricity of Christianity always keeps getting forgotten.


Personally, I think that one of the main reasons why Christianity appears so... hollow these days is that people worship the symbols to the detriment of the ideas. Nobody talks about the ideas anymore.
Me? I worship that which inspired Bach and Michelangelo, which touched Hölderlin and Shakespeare, which made Pico della Mirandola declare us the most free among all creatures. I worship whatever it is that makes people take on enourmous hardships and sacrifices for the sake of others.

The fact that I call it by one name doesn't mean that it's the only one, though.

[Phil Theehor]

If God is the apotheosis of a culture's highest values, then that means that we basically worship those values through a more concrete figure. In the end, the main difference between religion and "pure" philosophy is this channelling of all that one considers good into an easily comprehensible symbol, or a series thereof.

So as I've said before (http://archive.gorillamask.net/showpost.php?p=2301294&postcount=19), to me, God is the personification and exaltation of the concepts of love and creative force, which I believe to be the most important of human traits. I worship those ideas through the metaphor of divinity. Christianity is a very platonic thing, if you look at it.

And then, of course, there's the figure of Jesus, who - to me - represents the personification of love. As stated previously, if love is God, then isn't a man who lives and breathes love at the expense of everything else ipso facto divine?





Okay. I get all that (beautifully-stated. by the way). I'm still having trouble with one question that I don't think you've covered. You touch on it a bit when you speak of religion v. true philosophy.

Can you interact with God if He is a human construct? When you ask Him for help with an exam, is He listening? Can the Metaphor hear you?

I understand your point that you needn't believe all of the mythology to have faith and to worship, and more importantly, that one system of beliefs won’t give us all of the answers (or even a fraction). What you seem to be saying is that you have faith in what God represents. God’s existence as an actual being or a human construct is irrelevant to your practice.

But can you really separate the two?

Christianity (like other faiths) is built on a cornerstone belief that there is something omnipotent and omniscient out there keeping an eye on things. If your "something out there" is a human construct, can you really be a believer, or are you just an admirer of the positive aspects of Christianity?

It seems that without actual belief, religion is just a more visible, formal practice of philosophy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

P.S. I apologize to the participants here if I keep re-asking the same question. I’ve seen some interesting thoughts from both sides of the aisle, but I’m having trouble reconciling this one position.

[Archetype]

But can you really separate the two?

Not really, so why do you keep trying to separate the two?

Christianity (like other faiths) is built on a cornerstone belief that there is something omnipotent and omniscient out there keeping an eye on things.

Arguable, I'd actually go for a reverse, more that there's something in there. Judaism is more of an out there system of faith.

If your "something out there" is a human construct, can you really be a believer, or are you just an admirer of the positive aspects of Christianity?

It seems that without actual belief, religion is just a more visible, formal practice of philosophy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

Who said anything about lacking belief? Why is the belief in the realization of an idea into form less valid than someone who believes there's a bearded man living atop a golden, clouded throne?

[freegood]

I don't think you can separate the two. God wants both your heart and mind. Think of God as a jealous but all-loving woman. Arch is an ass man. Too many are going for the tits.

But there is a particular distinction in prayer, such as asking for strength, that is missed here. Asking for help is a personal admission that one doesn't know what will happen. Sure, some will think it's some wishlist, but bear with me here. Your question implies two actions, the praying and the listening. What is prayed has as much importance as to whom is prayed. You'd be hard pressed to discount God from a religious person who found the resolve to do remarkable things after asking for strength. You could claim that the great spiritual works of certain artists are because it was for other people to witness, the source of the artist's passion overshadows the average non-believer.

Now that isn't to say an atheists couldn't create a work on par with the Sistine Chapel, but it's unlikely there would be any Sistine Chapels coming from of atheist artists.

Then one could ask, if well people can perform remarkable feats of strength/perseverance without God, then isn't God a crutch? (By casting out the crutch, people can achieve their fullest potential!) I think if prayer is a tool to help many end just a little self doubt in their minds, then whatever it is called shouldn't matter. While it'd be cool to know for sure if Someone is listening, there is utility and a cognitive difference behind the act of prayer sufficient enough to answer your question.

[Archangel]

Actually, I'm very much a tit man.

[Archangel]

Back on topic, though, what I was trying to say is that to us, God is essentially unknowable. Looking through the embrasure of faith and trying to divine (lulz) the nature of God is like an ant looking at a human being's toe, and trying to imagine what humans look like, what they think, how their stance towards ants is, etc. But, the ant can still hope that that toe won't squash it.

Yes, I believe that there is something out there. I believe that Creation and everything that happened after was not an accident of happenstance. I also believe that we are way to small to ever comprehend something as immense as the creative force behind the universe. I believe that love is the only way we can even begin to understand a fraction of it.
That's the challenge. That's how thought evolves. Look at it: First, it's animals, totems, from early man to (vestigially) ancient Egypt and Hinduism, creating the world and ruling it. Then, gods start becoming ever more human, while creation becomes ever more abstract: The creation genealogy in Hesiod's Theogony is a prime example of this. Parallel to this, monotheistic tendencies are born and start to take over (Dionysos, Aten, Mithras, YHWH etc). And then, with Plato and Christ, divinity becomes an idea while humanity is exalted. From powerful animals to über-humans to ideas: This is some amazing epistemic and paradigmatic progress - the problem is, the last step is too complex for most people to take, so we revert back to the concrete. To symbols.

Anyway...

The cornerstone of my faith/my personal philosophy are the words of Jesus Christ; while His divinity, His birth and resurrection are matters of faith, the rightness (for me) of the message isn't.
It's a thin line between personification and apotheosis: If you worship love as the founding principle of the universe, as the idea behind Creation, and somebody personifies that love, what does it matter whether that line is crossed or not? The Nazarene is the closest mimesis of love that man has been able to achieve: For all intents and purposes, that renders Him itself divine in my eyes, and deserving of respect, admiration, veneration and worship even.

Those old Jews were smart people. Think about it: If love is the key to divinity, and man's greatest gift is indeed love, then the idea of God making us "in His image" suddenly starts to make some serious sense.




Oh, and btw, my PC is still bricked. :(

[Phil Theehor]

Not really, so why do you keep trying to separate the two?


I'm not trying to do that. That is the root of my question.


While it'd be cool to know for sure if Someone is listening, there is utility and a cognitive difference behind the act of prayer sufficient enough to answer your question.

Agreed. Well-said.





Yes, I believe that there is something out there. I believe that Creation and everything that happened after was not an accident of happenstance. I also believe that we are way to small to ever comprehend something as immense as the creative force behind the universe. I believe that love is the only way we can even begin to understand a fraction of it.

Thanks. That was the clarification I was seeking.

[halfabubbleoff]

I
But there is a particular distinction in prayer, such as asking for strength, that is missed here. Asking for help is a personal admission that one doesn't know what will happen.
....
Now that isn't to say an atheists couldn't create a work on par with the Sistine Chapel, but it's unlikely there would be any Sistine Chapels coming from of atheist artists.

I must admit to being confused by the first point (above). I am under the understanding that praying for strength implies that you have a desired outcome that you are requesting assistance to achieve. That prayer, does have three results. First, it affirms your belief in a higher power and acknowledges that you do not have the strength to perform some tasks without assistance. Secondly, it calls attention to your dilemma from your higher power and gives voice to your desired outcome. Third is the more "new age" result. That one believes, that your prayer will unlock your own potential by virtue of your faith in an outside force. There are several Christan churches who lean toward that idea as well. They teach that God has left Man to his own design, and only affects life in unobtrusive, subtle ways.

I included the second part of the quote to address a pet peeve of mine. I have heard the Atheists argument before. Why do you think they would not create a work like the Chapel? I have seen amazing works of art painted by commission that the artist has no belief in what-so-ever. One's religious belief has very little to do with the quality of art they can or are willing to produce.

[freegood]

I must admit to being confused by the first point (above). I am under the understanding that praying for strength implies that you have a desired outcome that you are requesting assistance to achieve.

By "not knowing the outcome," I meant the person doesn't know if he'll succeed or fail. A person's self doubt can sometimes have a bigger impact than anything happening outside. If you ask yourself why people give up on their pursuits or passions, prayer can become a potentially powerful act.


I included the second part of the quote to address a pet peeve of mine. I have heard the Atheists argument before. Why do you think they would not create a work like the Chapel? I have seen amazing works of art painted by commission that the artist has no belief in what-so-ever. One's religious belief has very little to do with the quality of art they can or are willing to produce.

Because the Chapel's a church...

A little more serious response, can you compare the number of religious artworks against works without religion attached? Do they evoke the same emotions? I guess time will reveal the answer to that number question.

[Morfin]

A little more serious response, can you compare the number of religious artworks against works without religion attached? Do they evoke the same emotions? I guess time will reveal the answer to that number question.

I don't see this as an issue. Artists are artists. The Renaissance painters painted, sculpted, whatever, based on who would give them a commission; the Catholic Church (and other churches) had money. I have a hard time believing that Michelangelo would only have done a work equal to the Sistine Chapel merely because it was religious in nature. Michelangelo was doing that work -- and yes, it was a prestigious commission -- for money, as well as the prestige. The Mona Lisa, as just an example, had nothing to do with religion.

In my opinion, utilizing a gross generalization, even if the Catholic Church had not existed, Michelangelo and other artists who created religious masterpieces, still would have created works of art that we would be discussing today.

You ask whether non-religious artworks elicit the same emotion. That is not a fair question. Many non-religious works of art elicit tremendous emotion.

But religious artworks create more emotion because of their nature -- they are depicting something religious, something emotional to begin with. The Pieta elicits tremendous emotion because it is an amazing sculpture and because it is of Mary and Jesus. The sculpture of David is an amazing sculpture, but because of its non-religious subject, it will never elicit the emotion as does the Pieta. You've got to separate the two -- look at art qua art -- rather than throwing in the emotion of the subject matter, is what I am trying to say.

[Phil Theehor]

Couldn't Michelangelo's belief that he was paying tribute to the Almighty help him find a little extra inspiration? Using the same logic that has been discussed throughout the thread (that worship is its own end, that the act of prayer confers its own benefit) can't you then say the same thing about an individual who feels he is propelled by divine inspiration? That his hand is somehow just an instrument of the Almighty?

Taking this a step further-- if you believe what scientists tell us, that humans have only unlocked a small portion of our potential, is it not possible that a person who feels divinely inspired might not subconsciously find a way to utilize a part of him that he would not otherwise?

[Rover]

But religious artworks create more emotion because of their nature -- they are depicting something religious, something emotional to begin with. The Pieta elicits tremendous emotion because it is an amazing sculpture and because it is of Mary and Jesus. The sculpture of David is an amazing sculpture, but because of its non-religious subject, it will never elicit the emotion as does the Pieta. You've got to separate the two -- look at art qua art -- rather than throwing in the emotion of the subject matter, is what I am trying to say.Which Bible are you reading because mine is full of King David?

I do agree with the emotional nature of religious art. But that emotion works both ways. It allows the artist to be inspired and therefore create 'better' art.

[Archetype]

I don't see this as an issue. Artists are artists.

Ouch.

An artist is only an artist insofar as he can express himself. Which includes all the aspects, context, skill, compatible personae with what it is he's doing, etc. Creativity, and our recognition of it aren't as broadly applicable as you seem to think. It's sort of like saying that an evolutionary biologist could have been a quantum physicist, because they're both science. I think the only two "types" that are really that broadly applicable are politicians and businessmen, as lying effectively to people is the same wherever you are, whatever you're supposed to be doing. Too negative?

The Renaissance artists were in a rather unique position, most of the crafts which modern westerners have a tendency to associate with art, they had a mass of opportunities to learn, and learn well. They were funded incredibly, and there was so much available that they could utilize for expressing, and formulating ideas; the times were so tumultuous that they couldn't do anything but be artists. And yes, the European Renaissance was very much reliant on the Catholic Church of that time.

I have a hard time believing that Michelangelo would only have done a work equal to the Sistine Chapel merely because it was religious in nature. Michelangelo was doing that work -- and yes, it was a prestigious commission -- for money, as well as the prestige.

Mikey did NOT do the work he did on the Sistine Chapel for prestige nor money. That's pretty solid history. He did it, for one, because the Pope made him do it, and two, speaking of his work in itself, because he was deeply religious. Truth be told, I don't know if there's any craftsmen who created for money or prestige. They aren't terribly good motivators as far as artistic creation goes (starving artist). If he didn't have the background in religion and Catholicism? I dunno, I can't see much of a chance that he would have created like he did.

The Mona Lisa, as just an example, had nothing to do with religion.

*cough*leonardo*cough*

The sculpture of David is an amazing sculpture, but because of its non-religious subject, it will never elicit the emotion as does the Pieta.

I think you mean content. I'm just learning these terms now, so I have to correct you, the subject is the literal quality, ie. King David. Content is what the work of art is about, ie. beauty, albeit, somewhat mechanical. I wouldn't say it can't elicit an equal response though, it just depends on how much the person relates to the artist.

You've got to separate the two -- look at art qua art -- rather than throwing in the emotion of the subject matter, is what I am trying to say.

I don't want to jump to conclusions, so I'm hoping you'll expand on what you mean here a little.

I have seen amazing works of art painted by commission that the artist has no belief in what-so-ever.

Sorry, that's not possible. The belief may be in something other than the obvious, but it's simply not possible for an artist to create a work of art that he or she does not have belief in. Since he's already been brought up...even though Michelangelo protested against working on the Sistine Chapel, he still found the inspiration to abandon convention and draw in a Delphic frenzy directly onto the ceiling. In certain spots the scrapings from his handwork are still visible through the paint. You don't get that if you don't believe in the work, artistic self-criticism aside.

[Archangel]

I don't see this as an issue. Artists are artists. The Renaissance painters painted, sculpted, whatever, based on who would give them a commission; the Catholic Church (and other churches) had money. I have a hard time believing that Michelangelo would only have done a work equal to the Sistine Chapel merely because it was religious in nature. Michelangelo was doing that work -- and yes, it was a prestigious commission -- for money, as well as the prestige. The Mona Lisa, as just an example, had nothing to do with religion.

In my opinion, utilizing a gross generalization, even if the Catholic Church had not existed, Michelangelo and other artists who created religious masterpieces, still would have created works of art that we would be discussing today.

You ask whether non-religious artworks elicit the same emotion. That is not a fair question. Many non-religious works of art elicit tremendous emotion.


Ahem.

Why do you think that religion is so closely tied to art? Because both are quintessential expressions of a part of the human experience. Poetry, painting, sculpture, music - they all spring from the same well as our need to believe does. It is why every culture on this planet started carving statues and painting pictures of the things they worshipped. We, as, humans, NEED to believe. We, as humans, NEED to express those beliefs through art, whether it is Eugène Delacroix depicting a personified Liberty Leading the People, Phidias sculpting a 40-foot statue of Zeus, or Beethoven composing the 9th.


The problem with atheism and art is that the absence of something has a harder time inspiring people than its presence. Poems about lost love still mean that the person believes in the existence of love; if you believe that love is all a crock of shit, you won't be able to write songs about it. Nihilism may get some philosophical treatises and a novel or two written, but Dante, they're not.

I'm not even gonna get into our cathedrals here. They are one of the main reasons why people here view religion differently: To you guys, a church is some ugly building with a neon cross in the suburbs. To us, it's the most awesome building in our city, and even communists are proud of it. In Cologne, Rome, Milan, Moscow, Reims, Speyer, Strasbourg, Orvieto, Assisi, Paris, London etc, you literally live in the shadows of Christianity.

Anyway, those arguments you proferred show that the people who formulate them have no meaning of what art actually is. You do not create the Pietà for a commission. You don't write Paradise Lost to sell books. Bach's Weihnachtsoratorium wasn't designed to entertain audiences. Or are you implying that there is no difference between the latter and, say, Oops, I Did It Again?
The first differnence between actual art and a pretty painting is that the artist has to not only believe, but be absolutely bloody convinced of what he does. Baring his soul and all that. Anybody who knows his shit can spot an unconvinced work a mile away.
Ad maiorem Dei fucking gloriam. My theory says that faith and creative force spring from the same well, because they're basically the same thing. If you read, say, Hölderlin or Goethe, you'll notice that none of them are particularly Christian in the strictest sense, but you'll notice even more the unshakeable belief that their creativity is a glimpse, a mimesis of the divine. Those that believe the divine are but the ones that are so themselves, as the man said. Smart bloke, that.

As Shaftesbury says, creative force makes of the artist an alter deus, a "second maker under Jove", which implies the existence of a first maker, an all-encompassing creativity, a cosmic genius behind it all. You will find aspects of that belief in any truly great work of art; in creating a masterpiece, the artist becomes aware that he is part of something larger.


Oh, and the point is moot anyway, because it's not like you had a choice in what to believe, living in Renaissance Italy. Being a Catholic was the same as breathing.

[Morfin]

Boy, have I put my foot in this one. I need to huddle up and rethink to see if I need to re-assess or re-assert.

[Morfin]

Edit: I apologize that this is so rambling.

Couldn't Michelangelo's belief that he was paying tribute to the Almighty help him find a little extra inspiration?

I do not disagree with this and I should have made it clearer: I agree that if someone is working on a "special" project, they are likely to give it the proverbial 110%. For instance, a religious man working on a religious piece, or someone creating something for a king or president.

Using the same logic that has been discussed throughout the thread (that worship is its own end, that the act of prayer confers its own benefit) can't you then say the same thing about an individual who feels he is propelled by divine inspiration? That his hand is somehow just an instrument of the Almighty?

Taking this a step further-- if you believe what scientists tell us, that humans have only unlocked a small portion of our potential, is it not possible that a person who feels divinely inspired might not subconsciously find a way to utilize a part of him that he would not otherwise?
I wholeheartedly agree with this and discussed it in my first posting (Here (http://forum.gorillamask.net/showpost.php?p=92572&postcount=9)) where I discussed what I called the "PF Flyer" principle -- if a person believes something is helping them, it doesn't matter if it is or not. Some would call this the "placebo effect." Let's assume for the moment there is no God or higher power. If someone believes there is and that belief gives the person strength, extra focus, or courage, then you can say that the belief is helping him. However, it does not mean that there is a higher power. The belief helped the person, but that believed assistance does not provide any proof that there is a God.

An artist is only an artist insofar as he can express himself. Which includes all the aspects, context, skill, compatible personae with what it is he's doing, etc. Creativity, and our recognition of it aren't as broadly applicable as you seem to think.

Religion (and as you point out, the funding from religious sources) provided the opportunity for the artists of that period to express themselves -- usually in religious contexts.

I go back to the original Freegood post on which I started this digression:

A little more serious response, can you compare the number of religious artworks against works without religion attached? Do they evoke the same emotions? I guess time will reveal the answer to that number question.I took exception to the comment that quantity is part of the equation and I do not think it is, for the reasons I have attempted to set forth and which Arch set forth clearer:

The Renaissance artists were in a rather unique position, most of the crafts which modern westerners have a tendency to associate with art, they had a mass of opportunities to learn, and learn well. They were funded incredibly, and there was so much available that they could utilize for expressing, and formulating ideas; the times were so tumultuous that they couldn't do anything but be artists. And yes, the European Renaissance was very much reliant on the Catholic Church of that time.To put it flippantly, the Church was where the money was at. And the non-church patrons generally wanted religious art. Therefore, the vast majority of artistic works would be expected to be religious.

But to add in the emotion component that Freegood does, I said was not a fair question, and I re-assert that proposition. My point is that the Pieta is religious and therefore, in terms of it evoking emotion, it will evoke emotion as a piece of art, and then will evoke more emotion because of its religious subject. Change my David example to the Mona Lisa, a non-religious portrait for a non-religious patron. It will evoke emotion as a piece of art. But if we look merely at the scale of emotion felt, the Pieta will elicit more because it elicits religious feelings, whereas the Mona Lisa does not. Or, take the Pieta and change the context to merely a mother holding a dead son. The beautifully sublime sculpture, especially of the robe (in my opinion) elicits tremendous emotion regarding Michelangelo's skill. (I apologize for my lack of conciseness here.)

Mikey did NOT do the work he did on the Sistine Chapel for prestige nor money. I respectfully disagree but I do not have the time or inclination to research this. This was my impression from a book I read regarding the Sistine Chapel 2-3 years ago.

I'm not even gonna get into our cathedrals here. They are one of the main reasons why people here view religion differently: To you guys, a church is some ugly building with a neon cross in the suburbs. To us, it's the most awesome building in our city, and even communists are proud of it. In Cologne, Rome, Milan, Moscow, Reims, Speyer, Strasbourg, Orvieto, Assisi, Paris, London etc, you literally live in the shadows of Christianity.

I can't speak for others, only for myself. I agree that cathedrals are awesome works of art and quite emotional works of art as well. I may not believe in God, but I do believe in these artworks, and I know that the people who created these works of art believed tremendously in God and used that as an inspiration. I do not look at the Pieta or Notre Dame or Westminster Abbey with any less admiration and awe because I do not believe in God.

Anyway, those arguments you proferred show that the people who formulate them have no meaning of what art actually is. You do not create the Pietà for a commission. You don't write Paradise Lost to sell books. Bach's Weihnachtsoratorium wasn't designed to entertain audiences. Or are you implying that there is no difference between the latter and, say, Oops, I Did It Again?
The first differnence between actual art and a pretty painting is that the artist has to not only believe, but be absolutely bloody convinced of what he does. Baring his soul and all that. Anybody who knows his shit can spot an unconvinced work a mile away.
Ad maiorem Dei fucking gloriam. My theory says that faith and creative force spring from the same well, because they're basically the same thing. Where we agree is that the artist has to believe that he is creating something worthwhile, putting his heart, his all into the piece, for there to be a true work of art. Falsity, lack of belief in the work, will shine through.

Where we disagree is that this belief, putting one's heart and soul into a project, that this is a religious thing. I agree, for many or the vast majority, it is and that is what drives them. They believe in God, they want to honor God, they put their blood, sweat, and tears into the project to do the best possible work. But that is not the only way. Let's assume that I had the talent of Michelangelo. Do you believe that my inner drive to do my best would not produce a work like the Pieta merely because I don't believe in God? And you speak of love. Do you believe that if I was producing a piece of art for my wife, that that desire would not be sufficient to produce the best piece I could merely because I am an atheist?

I don't believe that is what you are saying. In conclusion, I agree that there are many religious works, works which were produced by believers wanting to glorify their God. But I do not agree that the drive or desire to produce to glorify God is the only road to excellence or a lasting masterwork.

I need a Diet Coke, which is the closest I come to worshipping something.

[halfabubbleoff]

....
Sorry, that's not possible. The belief may be in something other than the obvious, but it's simply not possible for an artist to create a work of art that he or she does not have belief in. Since he's already been brought up...even though Michelangelo protested against working on the Sistine Chapel, he still found the inspiration to abandon convention and draw in a Delphic frenzy directly onto the ceiling. In certain spots the scrapings from his handwork are still visible through the paint. You don't get that if you don't believe in the work, artistic self-criticism aside.

I think you misunderstood my point. The artist I was speaking of do not believe in the subject matter. They believe in Art and themselves enough to create spectacular pieces. By your statement, does that mean every artist who portrays a pagan ritual, magic, or science fiction must be a pagan etc. themselves?

As much as I hate to say it (as a romantic writer, myself); money was a very good inspiration to many artists, especially in the renaissance. There are many great works of art made by people with very deep faith that truly stir my soul that have nothing to do with religion. Likewise, there are many that truly move me by artists who do not follow the belief system portrayed in their works.

Warhol, was not knows for deeply religious works. Picasso's work wouldn't be recognized even if it was religious in nature. You could count the works of Dali, Escher, Rembrandt, Ryo, Vallejo, Linsner, Vargas, DeBerardinis, the list goes on. All these artists created beautiful, moving works without the need for religious overtones. Some did great work that covered both religious and secular areas.

My point is that the artist does not have to have to believe in the subject of the work, just in Art itself. The love of beauty in all its forms can be inspiration enough to create great art. Unfortunately, pride and wealth are just as good motivators. I believe whole heartedly in inspiration. I just believe that it comes from many sources, secular as well as religious.

[Archangel]

Not to be an arsehole, but apart from the fact that quite a few of Rembandt's works are religious in nature, none of the guys you mentioned can hold a candle to della Francesca, Giotto, Cimabue, Titian, Raphael, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, el Greco, Mantegna et al.

As to Morfin's post, obviously your belief in the power of art and your own creative ability can produce a great work that has a religious subject matter. And Michelangelo's faith is, from what I gather, closer to my own than to classic Catholic doctrine.

But come on. Look at the Pietà in St Peter's, or even better, the unfinished Pietà Rondanini. This is the same man who wrote Sonnet 75, "A chi fa notte il giorno" (to him who turns day into night - something very closely echoed by Pushkin in his awesome Qur'an-exegetic poems): Everything that Jesus exemplifies, the significance of his death and its significance for mankind, is sculpted into stone. In the pain and pride of Mary, the essence of Christ's existence is refelected on a very personal, individual level, the way faith should be - an individual discovery of truth.


As I keep saying, it's about the message. And genius always recognises its own kind: It may not agree with it, but somebody as spectacularly gifted as Michelangelo would look at Christ and feel some kind of kinship. Nietzsche saw a rivalry, a nemesis, but then, Kobe Bryant doesn't compete with third stringers, but people like LeBron and Iverson. My problem with Dawkins and his ilk is that they see the idiocy of Christ's followers and arrive at the conclusion that that makes Christ dumber than some professor. Dunno, I'm not exactly stupid myself, but I'd die before thinking that I was smarter than Hegel, whom I profoundly disagree with.

It's the saddest part of Christianity that the words of maybe the smartest man who ever lived have degenerated into staid, tired dogmata to be consumed by ignorant fools.

[Morfin]

But come on. Look at the Pietà in St Peter's, or even better, the unfinished Pietà Rondanini. This is the same man who wrote Sonnet 75, "A chi fa notte il giorno" (to him who turns day into night - something very closely echoed by Pushkin in his awesome Qur'an-exegetic poems): Everything that Jesus exemplifies, the significance of his death and its significance for mankind, is sculpted into stone. In the pain and pride of Mary, the essence of Christ's existence is refelected on a very personal, individual level, the way faith should be - an individual discovery of truth.

I agree with, as far as it goes. But... that this emotion can only come from religion, is where I part ways, respectfully disagree.

My problem with Dawkins and his ilk is that they see the idiocy of Christ's followers and arrive at the conclusion that that makes Christ dumber than some professor.

I agree with this as well. As I have stated in this thread and previously, one of the hardest issues that I have had to come to terms with is the number of very intelligent people who believe that there is a God. It gives me pause. But I do not denegrate them or call them stupid -- I disagree with them.

People's faith can lead to awesome results, as seen by too-numerous-to-count religious martyrs, or the Pieta that we have referenced here. The problem, or issue is that I think the faith is a belief in something that does not exist; the believers disagree. The arguments are fun and interesting, but I think the difference boils down to that.

[Yelram]

I agree with, as far as it goes. But... that this emotion can only come from religion, is where I part ways, respectfully disagree.



I agree with this as well. As I have stated in this thread and previously, one of the hardest issues that I have had to come to terms with is the number of very intelligent people who believe that there is a God. It gives me pause. But I do not denegrate them or call them stupid -- I disagree with them.

People's faith can lead to awesome results, as seen by too-numerous-to-count religious martyrs, or the Pieta that we have referenced here. The problem, or issue is that I think the faith is a belief in something that does not exist; the believers disagree. The arguments are fun and interesting, but I think the difference boils down to that.

Last time I checked, science was built upon the idea of "believing" something that is unproven, long enough to indulge in the ideas that result from it. If this is the case, then an atheist who bases their logic on science, should be an ALLTHEIST, they should be forced by logic to accept the possibility of these being true, being that their proofs are just as riddled with holes. Thats why when someone tells me they're agnostic, I typically leave them alone, whereas someone who claims to be atheist is just as obnoxious as the christian who is trying to forcefeed you their beliefs.

[Archetype]

I do not disagree with this and I should have made it clearer: I agree that if someone is working on a "special" project, they are likely to give it the proverbial 110%. For instance, a religious man working on a religious piece, or someone creating something for a king or president.http://s230.photobucket.com/albums/ee255/zichi/blogger2/tony-blair-portrait.jpg


I wholeheartedly agree with this...

Heart? Lies. You don't even have God.


To put it flippantly, the Church was where the money was at. And the non-church patrons generally wanted religious art. Therefore, the vast majority of artistic works would be expected to be religious.


Honestly, I was more-so referring to the whole socio-political shift that was happening which was reliant on everything that the Catholic Church did up to that point, which is in various ways, actually negative.

My point is that the Pieta is religious and therefore, in terms of it evoking emotion, it will evoke emotion as a piece of art, and then will evoke more emotion because of its religious subject. Change my David example to the Mona Lisa, a non-religious portrait for a non-religious patron. It will evoke emotion as a piece of art. But if we look merely at the scale of emotion felt, the Pieta will elicit more because it elicits religious feelings, whereas the Mona Lisa does not.

...not to be a stickler, but Leonardo ended up keeping the Mona Lisa with him for a long time. The guy brought it with him everywhere he went, you don't get that without intense emotion. It's also regarded as the single most famous piece of art in the world. Again, doesn't happen without some emotion. Just sayin'. Or maybe there was a codex hidden in it...


I respectfully disagree but I do not have the time or inclination to research this. This was my impression from a book I read regarding the Sistine Chapel 2-3 years ago.

Read I, Michelangelo, Sculptor. It's straight from the horse's mouth. Though to be honest, money isn't completely disconnected from the work.

I think you misunderstood my point. The artist I was speaking of do not believe in the subject matter. They believe in Art and themselves enough to create spectacular pieces. By your statement, does that mean every artist who portrays a pagan ritual, magic, or science fiction must be a pagan etc. themselves?

Yes. Yes they are. No, like I said, there is still belief involved, which an artist doesn't have to understand nor acknowledge, but it's not necessarily in the literal sense. But I felt it incredibly necessary to underline that all great works of art have belief in the content, somewhere, or it wouldn't be a great work of art.

As much as I hate to say it (as a romantic writer, myself); money was a very good inspiration to many artists, especially in the renaissance.

No. It funded them, and I definitely won't downplay it's role, hell, the Renaissance was an economic revolution as much as a social one, it's even where the idea of capitalism comes from, but money as inspiration? Absolutely not.

Motivator might be a better word.


My point is that the artist does not have to have to believe in the subject of the work, just in Art itself.

Gotcha.

The love of beauty in all its forms can be inspiration enough to create great art.

Lostya. Most art of the last 150 years, give or take 50 years, hasn't been about beauty. Not that this matters, it'll come back to that soon enough.

[Don Scrappy]

I need to get into this discussion, but I don't have enough time to read 4 pages of Arch's posts.

[Archangel]

:p

[Axel]

Last time I checked, science was built upon the idea of "believing" something that is unproven, long enough to indulge in the ideas that result from it.OMG, Yelram’s here! Rejoice!

About what science was built upon: when did you check that for the last time?

[Morfin]

I need to get into this discussion, but I don't have enough time to read 4 pages of Arch's posts.

Arch? What about me? No respect, no respect at all, I tell ya.

[halfabubbleoff]

Archetype: I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this point. I cannot agree with you in the artist changing their belief structure depending on what they are creating at the time. My belief is that great works of art can be created by stretching oneself to depict ideas or subjects that oppose one's own beliefs. Again, I say that their belief in Art as an ideal, and in their own abilities can allow them to create great works depicting subjects they do not agree with, believe in, or may even oppose.

Side note: I don't understand your "gotcha" comment, but I will let that go.

As for art in the last 150 years not being about beauty? I beg to differ. Granted, this is purely subjective, but I can see many works that I would consider beautiful.

****
I also feel the need to bring this back to the original point. I was trying to show that great art can be inspired by things other than religion. Art can be inspired by beauty, history, respect, even money. I will agree with Arch, the artists I listed earlier do not hold a candle to the classical greats, and many secular artists did religious works as well. Does that mean that art cannot come from secular sources? Or that these newer artists works should be discounted, or lessened? Again, very subjective. There were critics hailing Warhol and Picasso as greater than DaVinci, in their day. I think that is a load of manure, myself.

Unfortunately, I come not well equipped in this discussion. I am not a student of classic art. As the old saying goes, "I know what I like". Just as I love the works of Wagner, Handel and Mozart, I am just as moved by Kitaro, Zeppelin, Clannad, and Danzig. I love the work of contemporary fantasy and science fiction artists as much as the great classics. I will devour Emerson, King and Poe just as much as Dante, Wells and Homer. To put these groups in the same class is absurd, but that does not detract from the fact that each has created great art in their own way.

I think that is what Morfin and I have been trying to say. I agree that religion is a great inspiration, arguably even the best one. I would also say that it is by far not the only inspiration for great art. I do think we have made that point. I would also say that the definition of a great work varies. A great work of art will tug at your soul. It will move you in some deep way.

I would love to visit Europe and see some of the great works in person. I am sure The Chapel will leave me speechless. I will also point out that I was left staring in awe at the simple inscriptions on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. These were not religious works, but political ones. They were sill as moving now as they were when first written. Jefferson was religious, but his inspiration was not his love for God, but the love he had for his country and his fellow man.

So, does a work have to be religious to be great? I still say no. Can a great work be created by someone who does not hold a deep religious faith? I still say yes. Are the greatest works made by people with deeply spiritual or religious natures? Undoubtedly, yes. Feel free to point out the flaws in my examples, or in my thinking, but I will still stand by those statements.

[Archangel]

Nah, I actually agree with pretty much everything you said.

[Morfin]

Who's up for a group hug?

[Archetype]

Archetype: I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this point. I cannot agree with you in the artist changing their belief structure depending on what they are creating at the time.

I, what? I didn't say that, did I? Although in some ways, now that you say that, I think it does occur, but that's more of the effect that creating and creation have, which could be it's own thread entirely...

Again, I say that their belief in Art as an ideal, and in their own abilities can allow them to create great works depicting subjects they do not agree with, believe in, or may even oppose.

I'm not disagreeing with you there. I think that's actually what I said in my first response, but I would say that it's not necessarily "their belief in Art as an ideal," rather just a general belief embedded somewhere in the work, whether it be subject, form, content, or art itself.


As for art in the last 150 years not being about beauty? I beg to differ. Granted, this is purely subjective, but I can see many works that I would consider beautiful.

Didn't say it couldn't be, or that there is a machine that forces all artists to only work on specific types of absolutely non-beauteous art, but, well, look up modernism. It's starting to fade out now, but it's whole point's been to reject commonplace ideas, and challenge what art is, rather than creating something beautiful.

[Morfin]

No group hug, then?

[halfabubbleoff]

No group hug, then?


Settle for a high five and drinks at the pub?


So anyone else love the fact that we took a discussion about religion and turned it into a discourse about the nature of art and inspiration?

Thanks, everyone, for giving me one of the best discussions I have had in a long time. There was a great back and forth here.

[Archangel]

*bows*

[Morfin]

Mods? Admin? Please ban this joker.

[Trident]

Please ban Morfin for bumping this thread!

[Archangel]

Why the tard picked Philo to post his shit, I'll never know.

[fuldstændigamok]

Please ban Morfin for bumping this thread!

I'm on it.

[fuldstændigamok]

Wiataminut! Are you trying to trick me, ya silly brit?

[Trident]

Two words: Maginot Line.

Silly Danish/French types.

[iolas]

Seeing this bumped made me remember I asked the dawkins forum what they thought of it since Archs OP did make me think.

Anyways here's the thread highlighted on the most drawn out reply to it.

See Calilasseia's reply.
http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=67600#p1618014

[Archangel]

Hey, who allowed you to post my shit elsewhere?


Just kidding, I don't mind. But that place requires logging in; would you be so kind as to copy/paste that stuff here?

[Archangel]

Wow, I registered for laughs, and I am now bloody scared of those people.




I mean, some of them are obviously smart, but a circle jerk of those proportions, all repeating the same mantra over and over... "unsupported assertions based on axioms" ad bleeding nauseam... No respect given to an opposing viewpoint ipso facto... The racism of calling Siddharta "some fat Asian"...

Wow.

I knew that there were self-aggrandisers and hateful people following "The Professor" blindly, but this is just... religiously fanatic.


And now that I've seen those results, I do strongly object to anything I post here EVER being posted there again.

[freegood]

^They're desperately yearning for an A+ from the Prof.


I didn't bother registering.

Google cache (http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:CwiCH_6encQJ:richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php%3Ff%3D3%26t%3D67600&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a)

[Archangel]

Bloody hell, I worked 2 hours on a reply to that, and their fucking re-login feature killed it all.

Oh well.

[Archangel]

Turns out it was still in the cache, thank God.

Remind me to always do this shit in MS Word or something.

[Archangel]

Okay, so I'm working on my response for fanatics.net...

Here's part 1, what do you guys think?

I'll have fun with Slingblade's adverasy here.

Let's take a look at this shall we? Once again, personal pronouns addressed to the original author.

Indeed, let's.

My humorous response would be, "use the channel changer".

Touché. But what if I enjoy the game in question?

A more serious response would be that decrying all team sports because of the television commercials accompanying one of them barely rose to being worthy of a response.

Yes, but then again, there are people who point out the flaws in one school of metaphysical thought (and not the part about unverified axioms, I'll get to that later) to discredit all of them, so what about them?

Once again, I would require something more than an assertion to this effect. I would want substantive reasons why following team sports is "stupid", as this hypothetical individual states. Not least because it is possible to hypothesise that the development of team sports is simply a redirection of the sort of tribal behaviour that is manifestly evident in primates as a taxonomic group, not merely humans.

Why just limit it to higher mammals? Such behaviour is evident throughout the animal kingdom: Demonstration of physical prowess has been, throughout evolution, a tried and true method of establishing dominance or making oneself more eligible to potential mates - it's hard for intellectuals to accept, but in most primitive forms of life (including the average high schooler), the jocks end up with the girls.

However, as for why such pursuits may be considered less than worthwhile - well, is the onus really on me to point them out? I'm sure one could come up with a few reasons relatively quickly.

Which I would question immediately having erected the above hypothesis. Of course, whether my hypothesis withstands critical empirical test to the extent that it can be presented in a peer reviewed journal is another matter, but the fact that I can erect such a hypothesis should be telling this individual, and for that matter you, something important.

Yeah, it tells me that I'm quite glad that (non-empirical) thought and academia are two rather separate things, especially since I'm in academia myself. Boccaccio destroyed scholastic Catholicism with the first sentence of his magnum opus; something tells me that - while being a professor himself - had he subjected the Decameron to peer review, it would have come out like most of the garbled jumble which are essays on Foucault today. But that's just me.

An entirely separate issue. Irrelevant and a red herring in this instance.

And yet, that was one of the points you criticised above...

A more serious response would be that decrying all team sports because of the television commercials accompanying one of them barely rose to being worthy of a response.

My entire point is that, aside from the core issue of faith being inherently irrational, some people tend to pick out certain elements of religion (fringe though they may be), and beat others to death with it. Are those people not to be dignified either, then?

This need not necessarily be the case, but of course since we have hard evidence of violent behaviour connected to over-zealous attachment to team sports (again, arising from our tendency toward tribalism), one can argue that allowing sports fandom to become obsessively all-consuming, and linking it with irrational hatred of anyone outside the immediate tribe, does lead to the stated consequence. But then I would suspect that this is true of a wide range of human activities.

As is also true that sports events can bring people closer together and cause immense joy in entire populations. And displays of both dreadful atrocities and great joy can be empirically observed in events associated with religion. You do have hard evidence of World Youth Day, don’t you?

I would contend that football hooliganism here in the UK makes a mockery of that assertion, at least from the standpoint of anyone occupying a position in government. Governments, at least in developed nations, are usually more interested in reducing violent and criminal behaviour, not increasing it. Plus, last time I checked the status of the relationship between government and sport, governments tended to leave sports teams largely to their own devices, and sports teams in turn tended not to engage in wholesale interference in government policy. I suspect this analogy is about to disappear down the plughole as a consequence.

You accuse others of making unsubstantiated claims, and then act as if you'd never heard the expression panem et circenses before, to prove a point. Giving people something else to worry about besides politics is the first thing on many politicians' minds; as a counter-example to yours, I could present Italy (which was the example I was thinking about when writing my little rant), where professional football and politics are clearly interwoven, and where panem et circenses are most alive to this day.

So I'd contend that your smugness is rather unwarranted in this case.

Well once again, the analogy fails because last time I checked, team sports don't require people to adopt comprehensive world views. They merely require people to enjoy either participating in the requisite physical activity, or watching other people doing so. Team sports, last time I checked, did not require people to reject valid scientific theories on ideological grounds. This analogy really is falling apart at the seams, isn't it?

It may not require people to reject scientific theory - something I have no idea how you were able to extrapolate from my post - but it certainly does, in many cases, require the suspension of mere rationality. A working class man who pays $70 for a replica jersey so he can wear it to a game of a mediocre team (paying $35 more for the ticket) and blend in with the other fans - can he be called entirely rational? I mean, what tangible, scientifically valid benefits does he get out of it, except for the off chance at joy and solace should "his" dodgy team manage to steal a win?

I think that the analogy stands - just from a different perspective than you thought it was intended to represent.

Assuming that this hypothetical individual actually existed, I would certainly question his logic and his command of basic facts, given what I have stated above, but "pompous dickhead" is probably stretching things somewhat.

I'm a blunt person. It gets me into trouble at times.

We aren't.

Says you.

First of all, Dawkins et al are criticising a particular branch of human activity for specific well defined reasons, including that said branch of activity requires people to give credence to absurd notions and dismiss valid evidentially supported hypotheses for no other reason than those hypotheses happen not to conform to a doctrine. Indeed, at the very core of this branch of human activity lies the notion that granting credence to unsupported assertions constitutes an intellectually valid stance, a stance that should immediately be obviously absurd even to the casual observer, and a stance moreover that leads to numerous corollary absurdities. This is the central thrust of the argument of Dawkins et al, namely that giving credence to unsupported assertions is NOT intellectually valid, and that a branch of human activity that requires it to be so is in serious need of addressing.

Ah, finally we're leaving the ancillary rubbish behind, and getting to the meat of it.

Have you noticed that while - not without reason, mind you - you accuse others of adhering to absolute, dogmatic viewpoints, you fall into the same trap yourself? I mean, how more absolute than "at the very core of this branch of human activity lies the notion that granting credence to unsupported assertions constitutes an intellectually valid stance, a stance that should immediately be obviously absurd even to the casual observer" can you possibly get? You postulate that reason and the pursuits for which it serves as a wellspring is paramount - that, in itself, is a valid point of view. Alas, it is your inability to acknowledge differing opinions which gets me, and other smart believers who are rather tired of being called idiots. Many of them may possess the serenity to just not care; but then, I never said that I was any good at Christianity's virtues.

Also, how do you suppose we "address" the fact that several billion people subscribe to an idea which you believe to be manifestly absurd, not to mention problematic? No, I am not trying to validate faith through numbers, just pointing out an observation. Sendungsbewußtsein is a slippery slope, my friend.

The evidence provided by numerous strains of fundamentalism would suggest otherwise. Indeed, since religion actively requires the suspension of critical thought, and the uncritical acceptance of one or more assertions as being axioms about the world, religions that succeed in achieving this aim do not die out. The mere fact that the "stagnant and obsolete" systems you describe above show NO signs whatsoever of dying out in the immediate future, precisely because they have been so successful in persuading people to suspend critical faculties, suggests that the ones with the dumbest adherents are actually more likely to prosper than those that fail to encourage said suspension of critical faculties.

So, by your logic, no religion heavy on dogma and ritual, and light on critique and reasoning, could ever die out unless by conquest? Do you have any evidence to back that up? You talk grandiloquently about evidence, but in those cases where you tried to bring some up thus far, little of it was bullet-proof.

You are free to argue that, say, Catholicism is unfailingly uncritical, lacks self-reflexion, and claims the dumbest adherents in the history of thought: However, what lack of criticism - expect from their initial adherence to what you call a "bullshit" premise - can you point out in people like Francis, Joachim of Fiore, Bernard, or Albertus Magnus? What about the first great Italian humanists, Dante and Boccaccio, as critical of the church as strong in their faith? You demand that to show a critical mind, they first have to reject the construct itself - that working within that construct, trying to evolve exegetic and epistemic thought from inside - is eo ipso a sign of a lacking critical faculty. By that reasoning, the advocates of constitutional/parliamentary monarchies were bad, uncritical political thinkers because they did not reject monarchy outright. That's almost circular, not to mention intellectually lazy.

Unfortunately your selection criteria are wrong. When the selection criteria involve success at persuading people to suspend critical faculties and accept uncritically unsupported assertions as axioms, and when this particular criterion is strongly positively selected for in the world of religious activity, evolutionary processes sadly favour the religions with the dumbest adherents. Particularly if that selection is accompanied by positive selection in favour of those religions that are willing to use force.

What positive selection? Do you see mass conversions to wahhabism because those people are willing to kill for their beliefs?

And how exactly, in the light of the above, do they do this? What "baby" is being thrown out with the bathwater here? I require specifics of the sort I have provided above.

The notion that faith itself represents an aberration rather than the natural state of things.

It keeps getting brought up that numbers themselves do not justify a belief; but that isn't my point at all. I'm not saying that because a billion+ people believe in Christ, that validates Christianity, especially since I agree with most of you in thinking that a vast majority of Christians are blithering imbeciles.
All I'm pointing out is that because the majority believes, well, the majority believes. This, per se, says absolutely nothing about the validity of said beliefs - however, it gives you a simple fact to wrap your heads around. I have read Mr Dawkins’s notions on why that should be so, and found them severely lacking, a lesser re-hashing of Freud’s ideas presented in Totem und Tabu...

[freegood]

Damn... I'd need another two cups of coffee to read that.

[Morfin]

That's just Part 1, Mr. Tolstoy?

[Archangel]

Tell me, what is "ridiculous" about concluding that uncritical acceptance of unsupported assertions leads to malign consequences? Particularly as there is a large body of evidence supporting this conclusion?

Nothing whatsoever. Talk about straw men...

All I'm doing is disagreeing with the frankly rather generalising notion that faith and critique are mutually exclusive. Kant would be rather disappointed.

Actually, what you are being told, if you pay attention properly, is that the very concept of giving credence to unsupported assertions is bullshit. It isn't just religions that encourage this of course, ideologies bereft of supernatural entities are also guilty of this.

And I contend that you yourself give credence to unsupported assertions every day, and are thereby guilty of hypocrisy. However, if I am wrong and you indeed need to be 100% empirically certain before you do anything, I wonder how you manage to get through the day. Me, and everybody I know, take guesses every day, and our lives are determined by those often totally unsubstantiated guesses as much as by rational thought. The fallacy of your agenda is similar to that found in, say, socialism, since it dismisses existing traits of human nature as fabrication and artifice (and no, I am not dismissing atheists as “commies”; give me more credit than that): Just as socialism failed to take into account the very human attributes of greed and selfishness, you appear to believe that irrationality is an aberration rather than an innate property. I mean, hasn’t Rousseau been debunked enough?

You want people to be governed by reason, your main problem being that irrational people believe in things which are not subject to the mechanisms of true and false; and whilst many may perceive that bringing about a mankind where that doesn’t happen anymore would be a noble goal, you are so beholden to that agenda that you do not see people as they are, but rather as you want them to be. And that is where all theories unravel – upon contact with the utterly irrational idiosyncrasies of human nature. The problem is, I’d smile at the noble futility of it all if we didn’t know what trying to reject essential traits of mankind can lead to. There is no accounting for the untold individual and collective misery caused by Christianity’s primacy of agape/caritas over eros – something lamented by everyone from the aforementioned Boccaccio to Nietzsche, the real atrocity being in the denial and repression of something, well, as scientific as sex drive. By denying people the right to be irrational, believe in irrational things, and act irrationally, ungoverned by empirical reasoning or proof, you fall into a rather similar trap, further exacerbated by the fact that you believe that you are doing good.

By the way, patronising people who aren't there to defend themselves may go over well with like-minded folks; however, in the context of a discussion among intellectual peers (sorry for the presumption) of differing opinions, captationes benevolentiae tend to work better.

So why do these people, if they are purportedly "the most aware" of this, show no signs of engaging in constructive activity to remedy this?
You’re twisting my words. In your opinion, “constructive remedy” would be for everybody dabbling in metaphysics to put down their Bible or Timaeus colouring books ASAP, publicly renounce all that rubbish as unsubstantiated and unscientific, and pick up maths or biology books instead. I was talking about the problems within a given school of thought, and people trying to correct them from within. Basically, what you are suggesting is that somebody who voted for Kerry leave the US for Canada upon Bush’s re-election.
Could this be because, as I have stated above, that they have suspended critical faculties to such an extent, as a result of accepting uncritically unsupported assertions as axioms about the world, and regarding doing so as intellectually valid, that they have rendered themselves incapable of the requisite constructive activity?
You try to fit my a priori into your schemata, and laugh at the maker of the square peg because it won’t fit into your round hole.


Because some of them were engaging in fairly obvious and naked pursuit of personal aggrandisement and power politics?

Yes. The motives of the other side are always impure and questionable, while your own are always pure and free of any agenda whatsoever. I'll probably get banned for asking this (like I care), but how many millions has Mr Dawkins made, how many loyal disciples gathered, how much press gotten, how far inflated his ego, off of his noble effort at saving man from his uncritically following lesser pursuits?

Yet somehow, these people who purportedly are "the most aware of this" due to their possessing "the strongest faith", seem to be the least capable with respect to remedying this. Once again, I would contend that the mere fact that faith by definition, as stated above, requires suspension of critical faculties and the atrophying thereof, leads as a corollary to this state of affairs.

Again, you demand that to demonstrate any capacity at critique, a man of faith would have to a priori reject faith and embrace pure empirism. This is getting circular and tiresome.
Indeed, one could possibly entertain the notion that trying to improve things from within a given construct requires greater critical faculties than rejecting it outright. Preposterous, I know, because it is after all self-evident that the world’s monotheistic scholars were all a bunch of braying sheep.

Well it's likewise possible to contend that Luther was engaging in more than a little personal aggrandisement and power politicking of his own. But that leads to another central dilemma at the heart of faith, namely that the moment one allows the authority of the occupants of the relevant hierarchy to be called into question, this leads inexorably to the calling into question of the authority of the assertions presented as axioms about the world by the religions in question, which is fatal to the very enterprise.

The fact aside that anybody who's ever actually read Luther usually first associates the word "humility" with him, that is simply not true. The many different movements decrying the practices of Christianity never questioned its underlying principle, which is the primacy of love above all things. The Black Forest movement of Salian times, Dante, Francis, Luther, Kierkegaard - they all advocated a return ad radices from the corruption and perversion worldly pursuits had turned the faith they loved into, often at danger to life and livelihood. In a supreme twist of irony, Luther saved Catholicism by launching his j'accuse. If that is the definition of "uncritical" to you, so be it.



So tell me, in that case, what part of granting credence uncritically to unsupported assertions presented as axioms IS valid?

You keep parroting, I keep replying that your definition of “uncritical” and mine are two rather different things.

Well your analogy was fatuous to begin with, not least because professional sports do not, or at least they did not last time I checked, require people to give credence uncritically to unsupported assertions as being axioms about the world, nor did they require people to reject evidentially supported hypotheses simply because those hypotheses failed to conform to doctrine. Of course, one could suggest that giving credence to the notion that one's particular team is the world's best falls into this category, but then one of the beauties of professional sports is that such an assertion is frequently subjected to a real-world test whenever that team enters the playing field. In many instances, that assertion is tested to destruction. In this regard, professional sports bear more resemblance to science than religion. After all, if I, for example, decide to assert that the Green Bay Packers are the number one NFL squad, but next season they end up being flattened into the dust, losing all 16 major season games by an average score of 34-0, that assertion is well and truly tested to destruction in the real world, is it not? On the other hand, if next season, the Packers romp home against all comers racking up a 16-0 record of wins in the major season games, trouncing the opposition by an average score of 40-0, march from this base of results to rampant displays of supremacy in the playoffs, and end up taking the next Super Bowl by annihilating the opposition 100-0, then one can say that for the season in question, that assertion of mine was well and truly supported by the evidence. Once again, for this and several other reasons, your analogy signally fails.

Very well put, but the problem is that you look at it from an entirely rational perspective, which sports fandom - like many other aspects of human existence - has a rather strenuous grip on. You're getting two things mixed up here - the rational recognition of a team's superiority on one hand, and the phenomenon of fandom on the other. If people applied strictly rational criteria to which team they chose to support, then every professional sport would only have two teams. For what is the purpose of being a fan of, say, Newcastle United, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Detroit Lions, the Sacramento Kings etc, if none of those teams have a shot at winning anything? In Germany, a team like FC Cologne has been relegated several times, and finds itself mired in utter mediocrity - but for some reason, it has the second strongest following of all German football teams, and certain manifestations thereof are quite reminiscent of religious ritual.

Hell, ask any Cubs fan how he feels.

Keep in mind, I AM arguing that faith is, by its very nature, irrational.

[The Dude]

you should send him my post to TIM about god and the origins of the universe. he'd probably get his pantie---knickers---in a twist

[Archangel]

Hey, join that place with me, we can get banned together.

[taters]

My Thoughts on Atheism = Equally unprovable as any other religion. Just because one doesnt think they have any proof of a god or gods doesnt mean there isnt one. If there was, it could just as easily hide its existence from our limited perception (being a god and all).

Arguably, some would say that if there were any kind of definite proofs of a god, its probably not a 'god' (in the sense we think it) in the first place. I wont go further into gnostics idealism here though.

[Phil Theehor]

Good that Taters is here, because he fits into my point.

I'm sorry to take this a bit off-topic, but this is what struck me from reading the exchange between Arch and the atheists.

People, don't always discuss things with people with whom you already agree. What you end up with is a real intellectual laziness.

Some of the folks arguing with Arch were dismissive to the point of offensiveness. Now, say what you will about Arch, but we can all agree that he's not retarded. I've been reading his stuff for about nine months now and can say, whether I agree with him or not, that when he puts in some effort, his points will be well-thought-out and well-expressed. That doesn't mean he's right, but there's usually something there.

Now, none of the atheists struck me as overtly retarded. A couple of them could certainly handle the language and really appeared to know their side of the argument. What left me so woefully unimpressed, however, was their lack of willingness to discuss or desire to understand the opposing position. No, what we got from them was really 'argument by numbers': the Christian said this.... okay... looking at my manual... and here, here is my counterargument.

I can only posit that this intellectual atrophy develops when you frequent a forum where everybody basically agrees on an overriding philosophy. The lesson here... seek out those who see things differently. Don't just argue, but listen and try to understand (not just defeat, but understand) their arguments. Only then will you really know the merits of yours.

[Archangel]

I fail to see the point of an "intellectual" forum which is basically a giant circle jerk.

[freegood]

Being a Mensa member isn't enough.

To be fair, claiming that you think Dawkins is a pretentious prick and a shallowminded fool in a Dawkins groupie fan board would set off a hornets nest. But I liked their bruised and angry responses even though you weren't around to defend yourself. Must've made them feel fantastic.

[taters]

Good that Taters is here, because he fits into my point.

I'm sorry to take this a bit off-topic, but this is what struck me from reading the exchange between Arch and the atheists.

People, don't always discuss things with people with whom you already agree. What you end up with is a real intellectual laziness.

[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Some of the folks arguing with Arch were dismissive to the point of offensiveness. Now, say what you will about Arch, but we can all agree that he's not retarded.


I dont want to rain on your parade here man, but Im NOT an Atheist. Nor was I attacking Arch. I even complimented his ideals on religion a few weeks back. I went into a lot of this in the Gnosticism thread as well. I only said that I feel atheism is as not-provable as religion (by its own merits).

I kinda said this in my post. Likewise, I said that in the last Atheism thread. Im pretty sure Arch knows this.

:Apologies if I am making an incorrect inference in your reference to me, as I always say, never can tell:

[Archangel]

I think Phil's comment on you was rather detached from those regarding the Dawkins board.

[Phil Theehor]

Indeed, Taters. I meant that a wide variety of opinions is healthy. I cite yours as perhaps the most...varied.

[Morfin]

All you God believers are stupid. ATHEISTS RULE; BELIEVERS DROOL!

Ha. Losers.

What was the question again?