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Religion

  • O-Trap
    sleeper;1389839 wrote:3+3 = 9? Christ.
    Shit.
  • O-Trap
    sleeper;1389843 wrote:Also, 3+3 = 6 is a mathematical proof verifiable through logic and reason. You also don't devote your whole lifestyle around a simple equation nor indoctrinate your children with that knowledge through an ancient textbook. I mean the amount of logical leaps and stretches you have to go through to make this comparison would tire even a runner from Kenya.

    Why even bother with science at all? Like I said, next time you are injured, don't go to the hospital just pray to god and see how that works out for you. :laugh:
    My point is that if you have determined something to be true, that doesn't necessitate that you rule out all other options. You merely have to determine whether those options are the same as the initial something. I wasn't suggesting that it parallel in its simplicity, or even in the epistemology required to suggest either as true.

    However, I won't blame you for poking fun at me for the 3+3 comment. Hell, I'm not even editing it.
  • sleeper
    O-Trap;1389849 wrote:My point is that if you have determined something to be true, that doesn't necessitate that you rule out all other options. You merely have to determine whether those options are the same as the initial something. I wasn't suggesting that it parallel in its simplicity, or even in the epistemology required to suggest either as true.

    However, I won't blame you for poking fun at me for the 3+3 comment. Hell, I'm not even editing it.
    No, the point of the exercise is to show that your beliefs are based on those handed down by your parents and indoctrinated through family pressure until you've completely lost your mind and have no basis for following a logical construct throughout your entire life. These people need to be institutionalized indefinitely.
  • O-Trap
    sleeper;1389852 wrote:No, the point of the exercise is to show that your beliefs are based on those handed down by your parents and indoctrinated through family pressure until you've completely lost your mind and have no basis for following a logical construct throughout your entire life. These people need to be institutionalized indefinitely.
    My beliefs are largely different from my parents' beliefs, and honestly, I have never had any desire to share my parents' beliefs, so there's no motivation or substantiation for the parental indoctrination claim. In truth, I'm surprised you'd even try to make such a claim, since there is zero scientific evidence to substantiate your assertion, since that's the only view of epistemology to which you subscribe (ironically).

    Also, I know of no scientific substantiation to suggest that anyone with a wider, more inquisitive worldview than your own has lost his or her mind, either. Now, since my own worldview doesn't require scientific substantiation for non-scientific matters, I'd be open to discussing it, but I find it odd that you would make such a claim, given the lack of empirical evidence.

    As for people who actually do go batshit, I believe they should be institutionalized as well, though technically, that's not an empirically knowable truth, either ... if it's a truth at all.
  • sleeper
    Oh certainly there are other ways for someone to suspend logic and reason and subscribe to an unproven belief system. Childhood indoctrination is certainly the most common method unless you find no correlation between an individual's beliefs with their parents belief(hint: there is, and its very strong). Other methods include those living in mediocrity, mid life crises, heavy ignorance, etc. God provides an easy way out to smooth over life's troubles since his message is largely about lacking personal accountability and having a mythical figure named god in control. Fairy tales are nice, but they aren't real and I don't know why you'd want to place yourself in that kind of delusion willingly.

    As far as your comments regarding keeping believers out of mental hospitals, I disagree. If you say you are praying to god and god is talking to you and guiding you through life you are labeled sane. If you say the exact same sentence but replace god into his more notable form of "invisible and powerful unproven friend" you'd be sent to the asylum for medical attention. The massive institutionalization of religious believers would go a long way in correcting this disease and advancing humans into the next echelon.
  • O-Trap
    sleeper;1389903 wrote:Oh certainly there are other ways for someone to suspend logic and reason and subscribe to an unproven belief system. Childhood indoctrination is certainly the most common method unless you find no correlation between an individual's beliefs with their parents belief(hint: there is, and its very strong). Other methods include those living in mediocrity, mid life crises, heavy ignorance, etc. God provides an easy way out to smooth over life's troubles since his message is largely about lacking personal accountability and having a mythical figure named god in control. Fairy tales are nice, but they aren't real and I don't know why you'd want to place yourself in that kind of delusion willingly.
    I would never wish to place myself into a delusion, particularly with the foreknowledge of doing so. At some point, however, belief is no longer volitional, and as such, I was compelled to believe what I thought made the most sense. Had nothing to do with a crisis of any kind, and it didn't make life easier in any discernible way.

    I do know of the correlation between parental beliefs and an individual's beliefs. I've used that talking point before in the same way that you are. I've actually used just about EVERY talking point I've heard you use at times when I used to argue with believers of any non-physical things.

    The problem is that even declarative statements, such as the one you made about living in mediocrity and midlife crises, are often non-empirical by definition. As such, a person who holds himself as a strict empiricist cannot make them while adhering to his own professed worldview.
    sleeper;1389903 wrote:As far as your comments regarding keeping believers out of mental hospitals, I disagree. If you say you are praying to god and god is talking to you and guiding you through life you are labeled sane. If you say the exact same sentence but replace god into his more notable form of "invisible and powerful unproven friend" you'd be sent to the asylum for medical attention. The massive institutionalization of religious believers would go a long way in correcting this disease and advancing humans into the next echelon.
    There is zero empirical evidence to substantiate the statement that belief in non-physical, sentient entities is a disease or mental condition in any way. As such, if you consider yourself a strict empiricist, you are unable to hold such a view. Thus far, your only basis for asserting your theory on the cause is your default rejection of the legitimacy of the effect. In essence, you reject the premises of the syllogism, not based on evidence, but based on the conclusion to which they lead. It's almost like you're affirming the consequent, which is a formal fallacy.

    But what do I know? I apparently think 3 + 3 = 9.
  • Devils Advocate
    for the lulz

  • jmog
    Devils Advocate;1389950 wrote:for the lulz

    Now that's funny!
  • sleeper
    I tried to rep you for that post o-trap, but it wouldn't let me. It was well written and hard to combat with only words. Nice job. :thumbup:
  • O-Trap
    sleeper;1390000 wrote:I tried to rep you for that post o-trap, but it wouldn't let me. It was well written and hard to combat with only words. Nice job. :thumbup:
    Hell, I meant every word of it.
  • End of Line
    Religion to me is nothing but a scam. Yes I'm an Atheist.
  • Con_Alma
    sleeper;1389826 wrote:Do you use this methodology to validate anything else in your life? Say gravity?
    Only those things involving the spirit.
  • Con_Alma
    sleeper;1389852 wrote:No, the point of the exercise is to show that your beliefs are based on those handed down by your parents and indoctrinated through family pressure until you've completely lost your mind and have no basis for following a logical construct throughout your entire life. These people need to be institutionalized indefinitely.
    ????

    My beliefs have nothgin to do with my parents. They certainly didn't have the beliefs that I do. ....but I explained that to you in another thread when this topic came up.
  • OSH
    Con_Alma;1390020 wrote:????

    My beliefs have nothgin to do with my parents. They certainly didn't have the beliefs that I do. ....but I explained that to you in another thread when this topic came up.
    Oh, you mean THAT thread...wait, which religion thread that sleeper started to "prove" people wrong about their beliefs?
  • Con_Alma
    OSH;1390031 wrote:Oh, you mean THAT thread...wait, which religion thread that sleeper started to "prove" people wrong about their beliefs?
    Yeah, that one, and that one and that one.:(
  • O-Trap
    End of Line;1390006 wrote:Religion to me is nothing but a scam. Yes I'm an Atheist.
    To be a scam, typically you have to lose something. What does religion, in general, scam a person out of?
  • sleeper
    O-Trap;1390127 wrote:To be a scam, typically you have to lose something. What does religion, in general, scam a person out of?
    Intellectual integrity.
  • O-Trap
    sleeper;1390129 wrote:Intellectual integrity.
    I would suggest that believing in the claim that scientific evidence is the only way by which we may know something gives up the same. ;)

    However, you and I have come full circle, I think.
  • jmog
    sleeper;1390129 wrote:Intellectual integrity.
    Seems like you have lost that just fine on your own on this thread without religion.
  • OSH
    O-Trap;1390127 wrote:To be a scam, typically you have to lose something. What does religion, in general, scam a person out of?
    I'd say giving 10% to an institution that mostly operates on 52 days of the year. That all goes to pay a church staff's salary, electric bills, sewage bills, and property taxes. There's a lot more that can be done than what a "tithe" typically goes to.
  • O-Trap
    OSH;1390223 wrote:I'd say giving 10% to an institution that mostly operates on 52 days of the year. That all goes to pay a church staff's salary, electric bills, sewage bills, and property taxes. There's a lot more that can be done than what a "tithe" typically goes to.
    In regard to the overarching term used -- religion -- you're referring to a pretty small segment.
  • End of Line
    O-Trap;1390127 wrote:To be a scam, typically you have to lose something. What does religion, in general, scam a person out of?
    Free thinking and living your life by a book that should be in the fiction aisle.
  • O-Trap
    End of Line;1390354 wrote:Free thinking and living your life by a book that should be in the fiction aisle.
    Not all religions have "books" or necessarily require obedience, as I recall. As well, I know of some that advocate free thinking to a larger degree than even a naturalist worldview. Again, it seems like you're dealing with particulars within "religion" instead of religion as a whole.
  • OSH
    O-Trap;1390342 wrote:In regard to the overarching term used -- religion -- you're referring to a pretty small segment.
    And what "pretty small segment" am I referring to?
  • Devils Advocate