Restating My "Religion Does Good" Post More Explicitly

[KikoSanchez]

Most rational people, atleast those growing up around the judeo-christian god and belief in hell, should feel very relieved that there is no god. According to believers, only they will make it to heaven. Of those believers, they say that only about 10% of their sect are "true believer" (see: no true scotsman). Thus, some 99% of the "souls" are supposedly destined for eternal damnation. Utilitarianism would say this is an ultimate evil. Speaking of sir Bentham, prudential utilitarianism is god, dragon.

[madnak]

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this is denying the antecedent

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Where?

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and even if it wasnt, i dont agree with your premises. if people stopped wasting their time with religion, we'd be much better off, and people would find a way to be happier.

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This is exactly what I said.

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lastly, utilitarianism is a poor way to decide if something is good or not.

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Let me guess - your magical axiomatic moral standard is better?

[dragonystic]

davids argument, thats where.

and there are no magical axiomatic standards.

[luckyme]

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lastly, utilitarianism is a poor way to decide if something is good or not.

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Fortunately, nobody actually arrives at moral choices that way.

luckyme

[pokervintage]

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A good argument for 75 years ago. Or maybe even 40 years ago.

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What a joke. Do you really believe that man has changed so much in 40 years or 75 years?

Religion is driven by emotion. Blaise Pascal answered your question a few centuries ago. Just read about his famous gamble and you will understand why most moderatley intelligent people choose to "continue" to believe in God. The proposed benefits of accepting "god" far out weigh the horrible thoughts of the alternative(s). In the words of a Godfather in the movie "Casino" "Why take a chance?"

By the way I will bet that the vast majority of moderately intelligent citizens of China do not believe in God? Gee now I wonder why that might be true?

Sklansky you need to go to temple more often. Maybe the you will understand why Einstein called upon "God" to deride quantum mechanics.

pokervintage

[Zagga]

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If tomorrow it was somehow proved to everybody in the world that there was no god of any sort, about 80% of the world would be personally distressed. 15% would be neutral. Only about 5% would become happier.

About ten percent of those who became inititally distressed would eventually personally DIRECTLY benefit from this new found knowledge to a point where it have more than made up for their distress. Still lots more would remain unhappy.

Put another way, even unborn people, at least for a few generations would be more likely to be happier if they believed. (Unless they were born into a very advanced country like Sweden).

On the other side of the coin is the indirect benefits to those who remain distressed. Fewer wars. More people working on cancer cures. Less repression. These extra benefits tip the balance for some more distressed people. However even throwing these things in, I think the overall happiness units of the world population would decrease without religion. Too many people would remain extremely unhappy without their god. (Of course if that is not an important measure in your eyes we have a different discussion.)

I will admit that even using my criteria, it is close. But only because present day religions are often so bad. If all religious people were either Episcopalians or reformed Jews I don't think we would want to change them.

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The thing with religion is that there is no way to disprove it. No way to get evidence that there is no god. This makes every religion not sientific, and makes the said hypothesis purely theoretical.

Still, I do think a lot of people need their faith, and couldn;t live withouth the idea that there is no source of it all and no afterlive of some sorts.

I, being an atheist, do have very mixed view about this all. On the one hand, I have always envied certain relegious people for finding so much happiness in something I could never believe. And religion gives a lot of happines to people and helps a lot of people. On the other hand so much wars have been fought and so much people have been killed due too differences between religions. So much horrible things have been done "in the name of god", so much people are not negitionable with due to their strong believes.

Would the world be more peacefull without religion? Maybe, I am sure there are plenty of other things mankind wil find reasons to fight and kill about tho.
Would people be more reasonable withouth religion? I think so, without religion a lot of impossible arguments will be gone in discussions.
Would people be more happy without religion? I doubt it, especially the first generation, will miss their old ways.

[Splendour]

Quote: The power of upbringing is still important and plays a vital role in what one believes as he grows older. There's no other way to explain why ANY reasonably intelligent and educated person still believes there is an invisible sky god lurking around somewhere. In fact, there are many very intelligent and educated people who still do. Why?

Because childhood indoctrination is extremely powerful. It is very hard to shake and altogether abandon an all-encompassing world view after years and years of having your whole life formed around such beliefs.


Well I for one had almost no childhood indoctrination. Yet I managed to believe in God. I raise you the book of Isaiah. Written more than 800 years before Jesus. It pretty clearly indicates there is an Old Testament approach to God and a New Testament replacement of that approach not that the new approach negates Old Testament teachings. You pretty much have to read the whole book because this replacement theme weaves in and out among Israel's current affairs and it takes a pretty good biblical history knowledge to know what those old Israelites were concerned about.

See this excerpt from The Message: Isaiah 66:18

18-21"I know everything they've ever done or thought. I'm going to come and then gather everyone—all nations, all languages. They'll come and see my glory. I'll set up a station at the center. I'll send the survivors of judgment all over the world: Spain and Africa, Turkey and Greece, and the far-off islands that have never heard of me, who know nothing of what I've done nor who I am. I'll send them out as missionaries to preach my glory among the nations. They'll return with all your long-lost brothers and sisters from all over the world. They'll bring them back and offer them in living worship to God. They'll bring them on horses and wagons and carts, on mules and camels, straight to my holy mountain Jerusalem," says God. "They'll present them just as Israelites present their offerings in a ceremonial vessel in the Temple of God. I'll even take some of them and make them priests and Levites," says God.

Pretty interesting Isaiah can predict Christianity 800 or 850 years before Christ.

Many in this forum say "well its possible to speculate and then have the future fullfill it". Yeah, I can see that point of view if it only happened one time, but it doesn't happen only one time. These things happen a lot more than 1 time, but you have to be reading with an open mind the whole sweep of the bible to spot them.

[Zagga]

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Pretty interesting Isaiah can predict Christianity 800 or 850 years before Christ.

Many in this forum say "well its possible to speculate and then have the future fullfill it". Yeah, I can see that point of view if it only happened one time, but it doesn't happen only one time. These things happen a lot more than 1 time, but you have to be reading with an open mind the whole sweep of the bible to spot them.

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This is a nice example of comformation bias. A christian searching for "evidence" to support the ideas he believes. But as I said before, it is not about what you can prove, it is about what you can disprove and the atribute of theories that they can be disproven but survives the tests that in a way proves them.

As for this, Jules Verne made some pretty accurate predictions, Nostradamus obviously too, but both aren't considered holy.

[Splendour]

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Pretty interesting Isaiah can predict Christianity 800 or 850 years before Christ.

Many in this forum say "well its possible to speculate and then have the future fullfill it". Yeah, I can see that point of view if it only happened one time, but it doesn't happen only one time. These things happen a lot more than 1 time, but you have to be reading with an open mind the whole sweep of the bible to spot them.

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This is a nice example of comformation bias. A christian searching for "evidence" to support the ideas he believes. But as I said before, it is not about what you can prove, it is about what you can disprove and the atribute of theories that they can be disproven but survives the tests that in a way proves them.

As for this, Jules Verne made some pretty accurate predictions, Nostradamus obviously too, but both aren't considered holy.

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Oh really? Well note the clay tablet in the British museum in the next excerpt from Wikipedia regarding Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. Jeremiah and Daniel both made prophecies referring to him.

"While boasting over his achievements, Nebuchadrezzar is humbled by God. The king loses his sanity and lives in the wild like an animal for seven years (by some considered as an attack of the madness called clinical boanthropy or alternately porphyria). After this, his sanity and position are restored.

A clay tablet in the British Museum (BM34113) describes Nebuchadnezzar's behaviour during his insanity: "His life appeared of no value to him... then he gives an entirely different order... he does not show love to son or daughter... family and clan does not exist [2]. There is also a notable absence of any record of acts or decrees by the king during 582 to 575 BC. [3] Some scholars believe that the Book of Daniel was written long after the events described, during the 2nd century BC, and thus are skeptical of the details of Nebuchadrezzar's portrayal by Daniel.

Some scholars think that Nebuchadrezzar's portrayal by Daniel is a mixture of traditions about Nebuchadrezzar — he was indeed the one who conquered Jerusalem — and about Nabonidus (Nabuna'id). For example, Nabonidus was the natural, or paternal father of Belshazzar, and the seven years of insanity could be related to Nabonidus' sojourn in Tayma in the desert. Evidence for this view was actually found on some fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls that reference Nabonidus (N-b-n-y) being smitten by God with a fever for seven years of his reign while his son Belshazzar was regent.

However, It is important to note that the name given to Daniel upon his arrival in Babylon was Belteshazzar, not Belshazzar, and that the end of the reign of Belshazzar the king, and the end of the Chaldean kingdom, is accurately described by the book of Daniel in chapter 5. The existence of the name of Belshazzar as a person who is clearly distinct from Belteshazzar (Daniel) within the pages of the same text which describes Nebuchadnezzar and so many other Chaldean rulers in their proper chronology casts some doubt on this theory.
The Book of Jeremiah contains a prophecy about the arising of a "destroyer of nations", commonly regarded as a reference to Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 4:7), as well as an account of Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem and looting and destruction of the temple (Jer. 52)."

[pokervintage]

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commonly regarded as a reference to

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You went through a long diatribe only to arrive at the Religious persons most used statement of proof....commonly regarded as...

Sad.

pokervintage