Ultrathread I: Thread of the Year - 2014

[Dragon2010]

Whilst you are right in the sense that disbelief doesn't disprove an event, science disproves the resurrection as it is impossible for somebody that has been clinically dead to be brought back to life. It's the same way that science also disproves dimension-crossing non-surgical and non-sexual insemination.

Science also does not have the answers for a lot of other questions, including parts of evolution and so forth. Science does not aim to disprove everything, nor has it.

 

[Skinner]

jeebus was a zombie?

oh eck

 

[Apey]

Wowsa, I thought after the lull last night the conversation was done and dusted. Apparently not!

Well, at the heart of it all, we are animals. It was religion (not necessarily Christianity) that first imposed rules upon us.

"Don't kill people" is a central tenant of most religions because, well, that's what we did before we were told it wasn't cool. Want a girl? Kill the guy who has her. Want something? Kill the guy who has it. Hungry? Kill a guy.

Society keeps us civil these days, but most modern society finds its foundations in religion. Like it or not, religion has played a huge role in 'civilizing' us, even as it's also played a huge role in holding us back.

It's not like we couldn't have figured these things out for ourselves without religion as time went on. Our morality is ultimately derived from empathy; it's why our morals aren't just a mirror image of what's in the bible or any other religious text. When you get down to it, I don't kill people not because everyone else says it's bad or because an ancient text tells me it's bad but because of empathy.

This of course stretches to the broader reason you mentioned of society. It's not because society finds foundations in religion that our morals developed, it's because as we evolved we developed empathy. In society, we are held accountable for our actions by other humans; we have to live and coexist with these other humans. That is what compels us to act in certain ways to each other. It always comes back to empathy; I guess though we could argue over where empathy comes from.

There's no evidence against it either, though. Your default position may be to disbelieve it, but not everybody opts for cynicism as their default setting.

Ah yes.

If a claim is made and there is no evidence to support that claim then the default, logical and scientific position is to reject that claim and assume the alternative; that that claim is false. There is absolutely nothing cynical about this, it's a thought process you can thank your lucky stars exists as it would have contributed to every scientific advancement that aids you.

Not only that, but you also employ this exact same thought process to hundreds of other hypotheses in your life. I'm assuming for a moment there are lots of things you don't believe in. You don't believe in them because there is no reason to believe in them, so you default to the alternative. The only difference here is special pleading; you have an emotional investment in this particular hypothesis. With special pleading, it's always that those who disagree with the particular hypothesis you're emotionally invested in aren't "open-minded enough", are "cynical", or "only see the world in black and white". The reality is anyone competent enough cognitively employ this thought process to hypotheses every day, but only to ones they have no emotional attachment to.

Scientifically speaking (but it's application is much wider), these hypotheses are usually in the form of null, or alternative. The null hypotheses assumes nothing, it is the logical default position. The alternative hypotheses is something you hope to try and prove or demonstrate. If there is insufficient evidence for the alternative hypothesis, you reject it, and assume (for now) the null hypothesis is true. This is not cynicism, this a building block of scientific thought.

 

[muzby]

exactly.

for example, i am immortal.

 

[Misanthrope]

The only time I mentioned Constantine himself actually selecting the books was my very first, tongue in cheek throwaway. You are creating a strawman because you don't have the answer. And that's fine, I don't know why those books were chosen over the others. Probably no one truly does. The point is, however, that they were. By men. Whether that was a Roman Emperor, a Pope, or a random hillbilly in an Israeli cave, they were still chosen by men. That to me makes me wonder about the motive for choosing those texts.

This last point, about the Bible being essentially edited (in terms of what went in and what was left out) by somebody human, is my biggest gripe with the concept of organised religion. Who knows what books were omitted and conveniently lost or destroyed?

You can't tell me that the Jesus depicted in the Bible would have been on board with some of the more hateful shit that is in the Bible, yet it made the 'cut' because somebody human wanted it in there.

I do tend to reject the Catholic Church for a lot of the things they've done. Not fully, for I know there are a lot of faithful Christians who are Catholic, but the institution should be shut down.

The interpretation bit is interesting - by interpret, do you mean the scriptures or how it is implemented?

I meant both, really. Both the way they choose to interpret the stories from the Bible to suit their own purposes on a small scale, but on the larger scale - they way they choose to implement things.

Case in point: the events of the Bible took place in a very different time for humanity culturally. We still had slavery, still thought capital punishment was A-OK, marginalized women etc etc

If God is ageless and above all of this human shit, the message should not feel so anchored in the culture of the time it happened to occur in. Why are women still marginalized by the Church? Why is homosexuality still labeled as a choice when we know that it is not? Why does it still talk about stoning rebellious teenagers and, more importantly, why are we choosing to ignore that part of the Bible but are on board with whipping ourselves into a frenzy over non-issues like birth control?

Re the 'why are we His prized creations?' Because we were made in His image. That is why. We were meant to be the reflection of Him. A short answer for a larger question re the Imageo Dei.

This is what I struggle with most as a Christian. God creates an entire universe that, one must imagine based on scientific probability, has life in it beyond that on our planet. Yet we're the most prized of his possessions? It seems mighty convenient given it basically gives humanity a blank check to do whatever the hell they want with.

Actually, the tale of Adam and Eve is a poem, or a chant. The similarities it shares with ANE creation stories is there, but the differences in the story are what is important. I don't doubt there was an Adam and Eve (of sorts, I'm still doing the research to better understand it, but I believe they were two people who were led to the Garden by God - Genesis 2:7-8 makes it seem that way) and I don't doubt God created the world, but the methodology of how He did it is very much not the realm of the bible. That He created it is enough. The 6 days were symbolic of various things and relate to the ANE creation experience.

Aren't you describing allegory here? You say you believe God created the world, but not as described in the Bible. Is that not an allegory intended to simplify the story and make it more accessible?

The 'God hates androtops' and all equivalents across varying topics thing is wrong. Just wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. God does not hate you. I cannot in more insistent language make that claim.

Humans here have created the disservice and started the prejudice. We must separate the beliefs from the believers. How we are to act when we are Christians is enormously different to how Christians must love those who are not of the faith and not living in a way that is in line with how God created us. They are a dichotomy that Christianity and Christian societies have completely f**ked up.

I hope that clears things up a little.

Legitimate question here, Drew. What sections of the Bible expressly forbid homosexuality? Is it more than just Leviticus?

More to the point, how can a religion that preaches love also preach that homosexuals are an abomination when their only crime is loving?

Satan does not punish us. He is the tempter, not the punisher. A little background on Satan. We don't know much about him, except he was an angel of God who turned from God and was cast out of heaven. That's all we really know. Satan made earth his realm, I suppose you could call it. He tempts those to worship anything that isn't God. This is very subtle and very broad.

If so, does that imply that the whole 'punishment in a river of lava' school of thinking is an invention of the Church to give us a reason not to be tempted by Satan?

 

[Misanthrope]

It's not like we couldn't have figured these things out for ourselves without religion as time went on. Our morality is ultimately derived from empathy; it's why our morals aren't just a mirror image of what's in the bible or any other religious text. When you get down to it, I don't kill people not because everyone else says it's bad or because an ancient text tells me it's bad but because of empathy.

Thing is, religion has developed hand in hand along with society. You can say 'maybe we would have got their ourselves anyway', but I don't know of any society that didn't have a religion that also dictated some sort of moral code for it.

I won't discuss murder, as it is too black and white, and especially so given we've been 'civilized' for so long now that I imagine it's impossible for most of us to imagine a time where we might have killed somebody for something as simple as a loaf of bread or because we wanted their woman.

I, personally, have no empathic reason not to steal. I am more important than other people, so if I truly need something and they have it, I would have no compunction against stealing it if I were not told it was not allowed.

These days, the law is what prevents that, but these laws typically arose from a foundation in religious law. Before we had governments and police forces, we had a God overhead who frowned upon certain behaviors. Our punishment wasn't jail time or a fine, it was missing out on our chance at a reward for our suffering on this earth.

I'm not saying that this reward was or wasn't a real thing, but that was our motivation for following rules read out to us by a guy with stone tablets.

 

[Apey]

And since Drew took the time...

There isn't a lack of decent evidence re when they were written. Given the ages of Paul etc, the originals were all likely written pre 100AD; Acts for certainty was written before 66AD due to the lack of mention of the fall of Jerusalem.

As far as lack of evidence goes, I was talking about in terms of specifics. That is, there's a lack of evidence to pinpoint it more specifically rather than giving a potential period a few decades long.

Maybe. I'm suggesting the accounts were written by people who saw / knew Jesus, or by people who got their information from people who saw / knew Jesus.

These two things are quite different. Are you saying some of the accounts were written by the former, and some by the latter?

Exactly what would prove it to you, though? What proof of the supernatural do you need? Genuine question.

Fair question.

As I have said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Dubious stories from 2000 years ago and people's personal revelations are very weak evidence given the claim. To be convinced I'd need something much more concrete. Evidence of a God actually interacting with this world or having an influence on this world in a meaningful and unambiguous way would be a great start. There is just nothing of the sort.

I could ask you the same question back; what proof would you need of any supernatural things that you don't already believe in?

I could even ask you another question; what evidence would you need to be convinced that you were wrong?

And that's one of the biggest problems with religion; it has no way of knowing if it is wrong. There is no falsifiability. This is a major flaw if it ever wants to be taken seriously as a path to knowledge.

That's a scientific-philosophical manner of looking at it. Given we're the only sentient beings in the solar system we live in, that makes us pretty special. Discounting our uniqueness is a very easy way to level us with animals. If we're all animals (I know we're mammals, but I mean animals as in unthinking), then we have significant philosophical issues to sort out re morals, ethics etc.

I'd say it's a factual way of looking at it, except maybe the impact we'll have had; that is somewhat subjective.

I don't think that makes us special at all. It makes us special in the context of our solar system maybe. But that's just one solar system amongst 10s of billions of solar systems; and that's just in our galaxy! Yes, our galaxy alone has 10s of billions of solar systems. We are absolutely nothing as far as the universe is concerned, we are most definitely nothing as far as the time and space of the universe goes. How can you possibly resolve the time and space of the universe with the notion that humans are special? It's honestly quite narrow-minded, but I prefer to consider it as general human arrogance and ego.

Well yes, as you said, we are animals. Advanced animals, though. I don't think our general unimportance to the universe needs to change the way we treat each other. We are very important to each other, and our morals reflect that. We are nothing to the Universe though. It existed so very long before us and it will exist so very long without us.

But if He did create it, why is there a problem with not recognising it? I create beautiful pictures via my camera, and people give me credit for it. It doesn't take away from the picture at all. Same with glorifying God for the world he created.

I think I was guilty of not explaining myself very well, which is pretty common for me. I was trying to address the point of the "God did it" parade when trying to explain and understand our universe; ironically I find this explanation not only completely wrong but totally unimaginative, and an answer that only raises more questions. "God did it" takes away from the depth and marvel of it all and it strikes me very much as a solution thought up by someone incredibly lazy and/or uneducated. It's a dangerous line of thinking that is potentially very disruptive to human advancement.

Who said anything about fairies? ;-)

Gods and fairies existing are just as likely to me. ;-)

While I don't agree with him, I do enjoy and respect The Hitch. He was so bloody articulate. I mourn his death.

Strangely, you're not the first religious person I've seen respect the Hitch. He has a bit of an aura about him so to speak, and is definitely my "favourite atheist"... although Douglas Adams has to come close.

 

[Apey]

And, that's me done for today. I'll respond to any responses tomorrow if the conversation is still going.

Let's gone NSW.

 

[Drew-Sta]

I'll probably respond Thursday evening to all this, if people are willing to allow me. Don't want to overstep the mark but the discussion is stimulating however with an exam tomorrow, I just don't have the time to devote to a proper answer.

 

[Apey]

Though just quickly, for some light relief....

This is what I struggle with most as a Christian. God creates an entire universe that, one must imagine based on scientific probability, has life in it beyond that on our planet. Yet we're the most prized of his possessions? It seems mighty convenient given it basically gives humanity a blank check to do whatever the hell they want with.

?It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.? - Douglas Adams

 

[Skinner]

Give me a call when this is done please...I can't handle any more

 

[Misanthrope]

Give me a call when this is done please...I can't handle any more

This kind of thing is what the Ultrathread is for!

 

[Misanthrope]

On a slightly different, but related topic:

Are we alone?

Is there intelligent life out there and, if so, what odds we'll ever make contact? What repercussions do you think this kind of contact would have on our society?

 

[HowHigh]

On a slightly different, but related topic:

Are we alone?

Is there intelligent life out there and, if so, what odds we'll ever make contact? What repercussions do you think this kind of contact would have on our society?

I think there would have to be, the universe is that massive and uncharted.

Making contact? I don't think it's a good idea, we might have an Independence Day style situation..

 

[Rhino_NQ]

They already walk among us

 

[Misanthrope]

God damn goo-backs

 

[Rhino_NQ]

aren't they reptilians?

 

[Twizzle]

Bloooos

 

[Apey]

On a slightly different, but related topic:

Are we alone?

Is there intelligent life out there and, if so, what odds we'll ever make contact? What repercussions do you think this kind of contact would have on our society?

Like HowHigh alluded to, the vastness of the universe makes me think there must be, somewhere.

Wonder if they're religious? :sarcasm:

Honestly, more than anything else these sorts of questions is what makes mortality the hardest thing to deal with. That, if they ever are to be answered, it will be a long time after I'm gone.

 

[Skinner]

Apey - you bastard !!!