Thread: Religon is Faith...Nothing more...nothing less

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So why, why do we fight with eachother over a matter as trivial as religion?

Some people are just arrogant dicks. It's really easy to take the atheist side of view and bash someone's religion to make yourself feel better, like you are "smarter" than them. There's honestly no reason to continuously fight with someone over religion if you're the atheist or agnostic unless you've got some issues on your side.

And others are just plain stupid. Like the person who raised a Christian and never once questioned their beliefs. They just follow their beliefs blindly, and try to spread to their information like a plague without real personal motivation, and that pisses me off. If you're going to force religion onto someone at least say you had a vision or something so I can at least sort of understand a little bit where you might be coming and why you're trying to "force" it onto someone. And also, maybe I'm being a bit harsh here, but if you hit the age of 18 before questioning your childhood beliefs - you really were brainwashed.

This is one reason why I'm a Deist. I've got nothing to prove to anyone, and no one has anything to prove to me. I'm on my own here and I'm perfectly fine with it.

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well to argue the atheist side, the reason we fight is:

9/11
Stem-cell research ban
AIDs is better than condom-use

And the other things the New Atheists have talked about.

And my personal reason is that I think it is a sick-minded individual who looks at the majority of the world's population and think they are going to burn in eternal agony in a lake of fire. I think that kind of archaic Inquisition-ish, barbarian way of thinking needs to be risen above.

Originally Posted by pj

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the dots..are scaring me, i see them in every little corner! ehhhhh....(

I would say faith is belief in something without being able to prove its value to yourself with logical argument. In that sense, we all hold a lot on faith.

Originally Posted by Omnius Deus

I would say faith is belief in something without being able to prove its value to yourself with logical argument. In that sense, we all hold a lot on faith.

Yes.. If I didn't get this point across subtly (as I intended) then let me put it out there. There is no way in hell Christians/God believers can argue against science... There entire belief is based on faith. Thats why I'm an atheist, I don't believe in having faith in something that probably doesn't exist. But this doesn't mean I should be bashing people for having faith. I just simply pity them and get on with my life without conflict.
Many atheists say that religion causes violence. But the same could be said about someone fighting to rid the world of religion. Even as an avid atheist I stand by letting people believe what they want.

Originally Posted by blade5x

Some people are just arrogant dicks. It's really easy to take the atheist side of view and bash someone's religion to make yourself feel better, like you are "smarter" than them. There's honestly no reason to continuously fight with someone over religion if you're the atheist or agnostic unless you've got some issues on your side.



And others are just plain stupid. Like the person who raised a Christian and never once questioned their beliefs. They just follow their beliefs blindly, and try to spread to their information like a plague without real personal motivation, and that pisses me off. If you're going to force religion onto someone at least say you had a vision or something so I can at least sort of understand a little bit where you might be coming and why you're trying to "force" it onto someone. And also, maybe I'm being a bit harsh here, but if you hit the age of 18 before questioning your childhood beliefs - you really were brainwashed.



This is one reason why I'm a Deist. I've got nothing to prove to anyone, and no one has anything to prove to me. I'm on my own here and I'm perfectly fine with it.

Thanks for the comment, you've just shown me that you understood my point in posting. Also, your response shows me you reason the same as me, and for that you have my respect.

Originally Posted by ExoByte

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Originally Posted by pj

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Well... I didn't get any message out of that if that's what you intended. But thanks.

-Justin

What is trivial to you may be important to others. Do you think belittling and cheapening someone's beliefs is better than arguing about them?

People fight over religion because it's their "protective shield" and when this shield, their main method of defense, is challenged, they lash out.

Originally Posted by LDallNight

Yes.. If I didn't get this point across subtly (as I intended) then let me put it out there. There is no way in hell Christians/God believers can argue against science... There entire belief is based on faith.
-Justin

You really are new here, don't worry in about 5 or so posts someone will tell you that you also have "faith" in science. /Sigh and they are the worst kind of annoyances.

"It's harder to argue in a debate with a ill-informed opponent than a well-informed opponent." Great debate teacher's quote

Originally Posted by Sandform

You really are new here, don't worry in about 5 or so posts someone will tell you that you also have "faith" in science. /Sigh and they are the worst kind of annoyances.

"It's harder to argue in a debate with a ill-informed opponent than a well-informed opponent." Great debate teacher's quote

Actually my join date is before yours ... I just don't post often, I read tuts and stuff.

But yes, Someone will likely reply saying I have faith in science, but oh well. Like I said before, let them believe what they want, just don't try to spread your religion or belittle others (although we are all somewhat guilty of doing that... me included).

Faith is a belief not based on evidence, and science is arguably quite based on evidence.

Just a preemptive strike.

Originally Posted by LDallNight

Actually my join date is before yours ... I just don't post often, I read tuts and stuff.

Aye I knew that you were here for a while...I only meant new to this area...Somewhere in you original post I think you said you just recently found this area.

Originally Posted by thegnome54

Faith is a belief not based on evidence, and science is arguably quite based on evidence.

Just a preemptive strike.

Everything is based on evidence. For most people, almost all of the evidence they receive is circumstantial or anecdotal or indirect in one way or another. Very few people have personally witnessed the phenomenal evidence behind their most basic beliefs. Of those that have, however; some are scientists, some are religious individuals and some are both. There just is no way to justify placing scientific beliefs over religious ones, and the best you can do is to argue from your own faith in one or the other. Your faith as represented by the belief that one or the other method of viewing the world is going to continue to remain valid and useful.

Originally Posted by Sandform

You really are new here, don't worry in about 5 or so posts someone will tell you that you also have "faith" in science. /Sigh and they are the worst kind of annoyances.

"It's harder to argue in a debate with a ill-informed opponent than a well-informed opponent." Great debate teacher's quote

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Everything is based on evidence. For most people, almost all of the evidence they receive is circumstantial or anecdotal or indirect in one way or another. Very few people have personally witnessed the phenomenal evidence behind their most basic beliefs. Of those that have, however; some are scientists, some are religious individuals and some are both. There just is no way to justify placing scientific beliefs over religious ones, and the best you can do is to argue from your own faith in one or the other. Your faith as represented by the belief that one or the other method of viewing the world is going to continue to remain valid and useful.

See?

You sure called it, although it wasn't my fault since Gnome basically just skipped the first person saying it and then I had to respond to him. If people arguing against religion would stop playing the faith card, we wouldn't have to keep reminding them of their own faith.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

There just is no way to justify placing scientific beliefs over religious ones...

What about the enormous whole of reproducible scientific literature? What about all the useful things based on scientific discoveries that all of us use every day? What about making predicitons which are based on scientific principles and then shown to be true? Are you saying that "believing" in biology, geology, physics, etc. is the same as believing in Thor or Zeus or Jesus?

Science is something that people share as an objective experience. Religion is an idea interpreted by everyone differently, since it is entirely subjective. I think that is a reason to justify placing scientific "beliefs" over religious ones. Anyone who denies (real) science is an idiot. Anyone who denies religion is just being practical.

Ahh, but the idiot will never think he (or she) is one. Tell me, is the belief in a flat Earth better than the belief in Thor? Is the belief in flies born from meat any better than the belief in Jesus? I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but given a long enough time line, 100% of scientific theories are shown to be false. This of course is not a reason to dismiss scientific process as useless, and the same holds true for the spiritual process.

If you had an infection, would you take antibiotics or would you pray to be healed?

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Ahh, but the idiot will never think he (or she) is one. Tell me, is the belief in a flat Earth better than the belief in Thor? Is the belief in flies born from meat any better than the belief in Jesus? I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but given a long enough time line, 100% of scientific theories are shown to be false. This of course is not a reason to dismiss scientific process as useless, and the same holds true for the spiritual process.

Right, lets take things that were superstitious, and didn't involve the scientific method and call it evidence that science and religion are equal.

Tell me...how long will it take for gravity to be false and you fly off into space?

Originally Posted by Sandform

Right, lets take things that were superstitious, and didn't involve the scientific method and call it evidence that science and religion are equal.

Tell me...how long will it take for gravity to be false and you fly off into space?

"Gravity" has been proven false, in that it has been shown not to work the way it was originally thought. The names of scientific theories rarely change, but the content does on a regular basis. The current use of the word evolution, for example, is used to describe a theory that is only similar to what Darwin meant by it in the most basic of ways. Much of what Darwin believed to be true about evolution has been shown to be false.

You have shown yet another similarity between science and religion with your superstition comment, and that is the tactic of undermining your predecessors once they have been shown to be wrong. They were not superstitions, they were merely false scientific theories.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

"Gravity" has been proven false, in that it has been shown not to work the way it was originally thought. The names of scientific theories rarely change, but the content does on a regular basis. The current use of the word evolution, for example, is used to describe a theory that is only similar to what Darwin meant by it in the most basic of ways. Much of what Darwin believed to be true about evolution has been shown to be false.

You have shown yet another similarity between science and religion with your superstition comment, and that is the tactic of undermining your predecessors once they have been shown to be wrong. They were not superstitions, they were merely false scientific theories.

(they were superstitious, and they did not follow the scientific method, they deduced something before running tests, or even trying to observe the data as well as possible. Thus "superstition" is the correct word)

That's how science works you twit, we continue to research everything, including the things we already research, to see what we can add and subtract from a theory, to say 100% of everything science says is proven false over a long enough time line is an outrageous lie.

What you mean to say is, our understanding of what we know improves.

In fact it is the difference between religion and science, religion stays the same, and denies new evidence, science is driven BY change.

And just so you know, gravity has not been proven false, if it were, then you would not still be on the ground you egomaniacal pain in the ass....

If a new theory that is better than gravity arises, we accept that, until of course a new theory comes along that is even better.

You have grossly misunderstood the meaning of the phrase proven false.

There was data, they simply interpreted it wrong. Maggots were shown to come in to existence inside meat when there were no flies present. This is evidence. New evidence later on showed that there were tiny eggs laid in the meat. Perhaps you'd like to change your argument to 'the scientific method has improved since then' and I could agree with you. It still is not perfect, however, and it never will be. We will never be able to measure the world perfectly, and so science will forever remain flawed to an extent.

I never said "proven wrong," I said shown to be false. You may be right that the idea that the earth attracts us has yet to fail, but our understanding of the mechanism behind the phenomenon has gone through drastic changes.

If you'll notice, there is no law of religion that forbids updating and revising one's beliefs. You may take issue with specific religions on the matter, but you cannot take issue with religious practice in general.

I am so bored with this. The difference between religion and scientific method is really simple.

Scientific knowledge is derived from observing data, forming hypothesis, predicting, and the doing a dry run to see if your hypothesis is correct.

Religion is derived from someone sitting down one day, thinking to themselves, and then saying this is how I would like things to be, or in other cases, this is how I think things most likely are. Then there is no further reasoning, thought, tests or anything further than this. There is simply the continuous belief in what they've set down as the foundation for their beliefs.

Honestly this is getting sooooo repetitive. This is like a bad drug habit, I know its bad for me, but I keep coming back to this section. GGGRRRR.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

There was data, they simply interpreted it wrong. Maggots were shown to come in to existence inside meat when there were no flies present. This is evidence. New evidence later on showed that there were tiny eggs laid in the meat. Perhaps you'd like to change your argument to 'the scientific method has improved since then' and I could agree with you. It still is not perfect, however, and it never will be. We will never be able to measure the world perfectly, and so science will forever remain flawed to an extent.

That is not scientific deduction. You are correct, the scientific method has improved since then if you consider what they percieved to be scientific method of their time.