I in no sense want to promote any religion here. But it suddenly struck me, that many people do seem to get a great deal of satisfaction out of their beliefs. So that being whatever religion you can think of - Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and so on.

I think this video perfectly illustrates my point http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSwHKVinxX0&NR=1

There is definitely a sense i get, that it is possible to better oneself, to attain "miracles" of transformation by believing. Being an atheist, it might be a strange thing for me to say, but there does seem to be some truth in this. But, explaining it rationally, perhaps humans need focus and purpose, because without it we are open to the vagueness and the vast emptiness of not knowing anything. This cold reality can be quite depressing and, more importantly, unsatisfactory. It seems necessary to have something that lessens our insecurity.

But i want to concentrate on the benefit of belief to the individual. Is any interpersonal benefit gained from a religion special to "belief", or are there other facets of life that could, potentially, do as good a job? Why does one have to believe in order for, seemingly, miraculous personal transformations to occur? Although, again, i don't doubt that such transformations do occur because of faith.

And this begs the question, what is wrong with faith if it helps an individual so profoundly? Well i don't want this to dominate the topic, but there are many reasons why having faith and, therefore, following a religion are bad. For example, believing something so strongly that it blinds you from all other possibilities and, perhaps, leads you towards extremism.

Anyway, like i said, i don't want to digress too far. You tell me now, what good is religious belief?

I typed this about a year or so ago:

"To be but one more in a crowd of six billion is frustratingly overwhelming. The brain is designed to hold the Self above all other matters, and yet – in the grand perspective of such a reality – the being of One is entirely unimportant. There are a few who stand out from the other six billion, but they too will eventually be forgotten; unless, of course, they are to be remembered in textbooks of future generations for their archaic ignorance and their naïve contributions to the continual suppression of humanity’s progression.

History is not kind to the Self. It reminds one that all beings will eventually succumb to the passage of time and be another lost soul. In light of this unpleasant insight, religion has formed. Not particularly Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any other singular belief system, but rather the core establishment of religious belief. Whether monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, monistic, or even existentialist, these religions all do mankind the comfort of assuring a purpose grander than the apparent nature of this life. Manichaeism presents a captivating motive not unlike that of Christianity, and indeed this sense of an otherworldly purpose that transcends the dull and the mundane is elemental to what we define as religion."

...that said, I don't necessarily believe it. There's a perfectly possible chance that one of the religions - or several of them - weren't created for functional purposes, but that they really just are true. Faith is the staple of religion, and this means that trying to find evidence to prove the validity of a religion is completely missing the point.

It's because of this that I believe it is so pointless to discuss and debate religion. Nothing new can come out of religious conversation. No one has ever changed his or her beliefs simply because the opposing side "made a good point".

Granted, I kind of went off on a tangent in regards to your original thread topic, but then again that's largely what defines religious discussion in the first place.

This post was last modified: 01-06-2008 10:29 AM by Matt.

I typed this about a year or so ago:

"To be but one more in a crowd of six billion is frustratingly overwhelming. The brain is designed to hold the Self above all other matters, and yet – in the grand perspective of such a reality – the being of One is entirely unimportant. There are a few who stand out from the other six billion, but they too will eventually be forgotten; unless, of course, they are to be remembered in textbooks of future generations for their archaic ignorance and their naïve contributions to the continual suppression of humanity’s progression.

History is not kind to the Self. It reminds one that all beings will eventually succumb to the passage of time and be another lost soul. In light of this unpleasant insight, religion has formed. Not particularly Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any other singular belief system, but rather the core establishment of religious belief. Whether monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, monistic, or even existentialist, these religions all do mankind the comfort of assuring a purpose grander than the apparent nature of this life. Manichaeism presents a captivating motive not unlike that of Christianity, and indeed this sense of an otherworldly purpose that transcends the dull and the mundane is elemental to what we define as religion."

...that said, I don't necessarily believe it. There's a perfectly possible chance that one of the religions - or several of them - weren't created for functional purposes, but that they really just are true. Faith is the staple of religion, and this means that trying to find evidence to prove the validity of a religion is completely missing the point.

It's because of this that I believe it is so pointless to discuss and debate religion. Nothing new can come out of religious conversation. No one has ever changed his or her beliefs simply because the opposing side "made a good point".

Granted, I kind of went off on a tangent in regards to your original thread topic, but then again that's largely what defines religious discussion in the first place.

Yeah, but i don't mind the digression at all. You make some very good points, especially regarding the futility of entering debates with the religious, about the existence of a god or gods. You are completely right that they frequently play their, ace, faith card as though this is all that needs to be said in the end. You either have faith or you don't; no one can prove or disprove the existence of a higher power, so having faith is perfectly legitimate, they say.

The religious have their fingers in their ears a lot though don't they? They don't like the non-religious spreading their nasty doubt-mongering about the place. Although, they do have doubts, but just don't talk about it much. They'll trash science that upsets their views but, all too quickly, latch on to science that they perceive to back up their beliefs. Completely irrational behaviour really. Oh, but i forgot, you have to suspend you rationality in order to believe! Again, what chance does this give the non-religious in a debate? When irrationality, a suspension of good sense, is held to be a virtue.

Though, to be honest, I see it as perfectly possible that it could go "both ways".

Aka, what if the Hindus had it right this whole time? Everyone else would go, "er, wow, who knew?" o.O

Same applies for any of the other beliefs that haven't inherently been disproven - thus why I can never understand why people debate it in the first place.

Something is only a problem when it actually affects my life. If a person is religious and they keep it to themselves, well then whatever, I might not agree, but whatever floats their boat, I could care less. But when religion interferes with my government or life, then it's a problem, and I have a serious want for it to disappear. I good example would be the United States and the Right-Wing Fascist Christian Zealots that run this country and slow down the progress of science and society by crushing everything we have accomplished as a species with their ignorant and reckless violence and prejudice.

“We need a bloody revolution every twenty years, just to keep government honest.” - Thomas Jefferson

Arguing faith is pointless. Semantics really, as it's just a synonym for stupidity.

Faith: Believing (I prefer the word "thinking" because after all, what is "believing" anyway?) or recognizing the existence of something, or believing in the probability or likelihood of something being true with little to no evidence to support it whatsoever. So in other words:

Stupidity.

This post was last modified: 01-15-2008 09:08 AM by Brodie.

...

Same applies for any of the other beliefs that haven't inherently been disproven - thus why I can never understand why people debate it in the first place.

How do you disprove a belief? I am very curious to know this. And why is the burden of "disproving" on someone who doesn't believe? I would think that if someone wished to communicate his belief to another factually, he would also have to carry the burden of proof.

Let's say that I go to someone and say, "Drinking Amber Bock three times a day through your nose for three years will make you grow bigger biceps and land you hot brunettes." If I did this, then it is perfectly reasonable for this someone to expect me to be responsible for backing up my claim. So for instance, he might insist that I demonstrate my claim by actually drinking Amber Bock through my nose for three years.

But if I instead expected HIM to drink Amber Bock nasally for three years to prove me wrong... why, that is ridiculous. In fact, I do believe that he would be completely within his rights to ask me to take a hike.

You cannot make a claim and then immediately transfer the burden of proof.

In short, I have often heard of the idea of "burden of proof" being talked about among reasonable men, but never "burden of disproof". This is a new idea to me, so it is very likely that I'm missing something here. I would be much obliged if you explained it to me.

Matt,

I'm going to refine my curiousity a little more. Humour me here.

Let's say that a claim was made to me that was easy enough to dismiss. This might be true of a trivial claim where either the search space is small enough to brute-force it, or the claim itself is abstract enough to be "disproven" mathematically/logically through a reductio ad absurdum.

My question is: Even for claims like these, is it worth the time to take on the burden of proof/disproof?

What are your thoughts?

It's not that it is religious belief. It is that it is belief period. I think religion has many good stances on things. The problem is that somewhere along the way people get tangled up in all of it and lose their way chasing to many things. Believing in something is what humans do. Nothng wrong with that.

The problem I have is when people think that their belief can change them because they think God changed them. Rather then just seeing that what they think/believe changed them in and of itself.

My point is that religious creeds built on faith aren't worthy of debate, because proving and disproving are inherently incompatible with the notion of faith.

Ah, I misunderstood you then. I thought you were suggesting that beliefs in the supernatural can somehow be disproved, and that someone has been slacking off by not doing this. My mistake. I didn't realize that you were focusing on the "debate" aspect of it.

Just for the sake of conversation, here are my thoughts.

I'm not sure that it is always a "debate" when a skeptic initiates a conversation with someone who talks about a belief that the skeptic does not share (which can either be because any evidence for said belief is missing, or that it is seemingly impossible to provide). It is sometimes simply a bland expression of skepticism.

Don't get me wrong now. I think that I do understand your point (About time, too). You are wondering about why even the expression of skepticism needs to happen. I think the answer is quite simple, really. When the expression of faith is loud and public, why would someone hope that the expression of skepticism will be muted and private? Why the asymmetry of expectations?

And of course, in the interest of fairness, the opposite applies equally. If I publicly express skepticism in something and there is sufficient evidence for that something, I fully expect to get an earful of the opposing point of view. If I talk loudly about not buying all that tosh about an oblate spheroid earth, I completely expect an education. Do you find any of this surprising or unfair?