E_muse

Dimossi, to attempt to respond to your excellent points:

A very relevant point IMO. Of course more death, violence and war had religious origins in the past because religion had a stronger role in societies.

I would say that there is still plenty of violence, war, etc which is not fuelled by religion. Walk around any prison. Visit death row.

The common denominator here is people! Do the evils of man outweigh the good of man?

Layman

I don't see how this helps his case. Few will deny that infanticide is wrong. Or that rape is wrong. Or that genocide is wrong. So on and so forth.

Not everyone will agree with every aspect of "morality" or of "progress." He attempted to avoid the very obvious problem of the question: we are going to disagree on what is good. Take abortion for example. Is opposition to it good or bad? Is it progress or not?

He just sought to define the issue in a way that favored only one outcome to the discussion: his own.

E_muse

But progress can only be evaluated when comparing the state of society to a desired end - and of course, desire is subjective and depends upon what we consider 'good' or 'evil' for mankind.

What about religion and science?

The fundamental causes of war are people! Should we remove people? Have you ever been to a game of football? Would you argue that such rivalry has its roots in religion?

Religion wouldn't exist without people and, if God doesn't exist, God can only be what people are as he is merely an extension of man.

I hear 'us' and 'them' language used in non religious contexts all the time. I was listening to it today.

Ordinary people use it in reference to politicians, royalty, the aristocracy and the list goes on. On another thread in these forums an atheist I was debating with referred to educated people as the 'enlightened'.

If that's not exclusive language I don't know what is!

Of course there's also Animal Farm and the observations which George Orwell made about communism.....

As I've argued elsewhere, the fear of death is still a powerful tool in many secular societies.

If teaching the ethics of scientific cooperation was such an effective tool why do many societies still require prisons and the death penalty? Why has the fear of eternal punishment by an all powerful God been replaced with fear of finite punishment by an all powerful state? If education is such a powerful force for change why are such barbaric means still necessary?

Can you give one example of where rationalism has been adopted and resulted in radical social reform in order to accept your statement as true?

The premise seems to demand that everyone must possess the conceputal abilities to learn the conclusions which it is wanting to teach.

The scientific method was born in the context of a predominantly theisic mindset! This just isn't true historically! I would say that most religious activity is born out of a desire to know truth.

Faith in our day and age may be held onto for comfort. Of course, the idea that you might have to die for what you believe is far from comforting and so your statements do not hold true to all situations.

What did Jesus say? If there's any other way... take this cup from me...

Does it? Aren't beliefs an integral part of our cognitive processes?

This idea seems to suggest that, freed from religion (or falsehoods as you call it), our cognitive processes are somehow infallible.

How do you know that? Have you concluded this from observation or is it your hope?

If it is simply your hope, and, as you are a rationalist, I presume that your confidence in this idea is based upon your rationalization of events. That sounds rather circular to me. Let's see:

1. Falsehoods corrupt our cognitive processes - suggesting that our cognitive processes are in someway 'pure' if unsullied by falsehood.

2. This conclusion is the result of using one's cognitive processes!

It sounds rather like... 'The Bible is God's word! How do you know? It says it in the Bible?"

Of course, in my view, the other fatal flaw with this is that falsehoods are the product of our cognitive processes in the first place! If cognitive processes are somehow infallible how have people been able to believe falsehoods, or produce them in the first place?

In making the above statement you seem to be inadvertently saying that your own cognitive processes are infallible because you are not religious.

My question... how can one know that cognitive processes are somehow 'pure' independent of our cognitive processes? How do we avoid cognitive processes validating themselves here?

Secondly, deductions reached through the application of reason can never be considered 'truth' but only the most meaningful conclusions we can come to based upon finite experience. This statement applies as easily to the conclusions of scientists today as it does the beliefs of theists in the past.

Even within humanistic philosohy, people reach different conclusions which are all equally valid and rationally based. They could each be considered internally consistent.

How would humanism decide upon a set of values on which society could be established and thus escape the perils of exclusivism, even within the the context of its own philisophical framework?

In terms of human history, the scientific method is a relative new kid on the block - and is developing all the time.

All scientific knowledge is based upon what is testable and observable. Therefore, a study of what is helpful for a society is based upon observation of the behaviour within that society.

Certain values within society are learned and inherited from days which pre-existed the scientific method. This has been argued on another thread.

Therefore reason can never be upheld as antecedent to certain behaviours and can never make itself the baseline motivation for such behaviour as the behaviour had to pre-exist it in order to be observed and considered reasonable.

Couldn't rationalism be accused of plagiarizing if it makes itself antecedent to certain behaviours which had to pre-exist it in order to be observed, rationalized and considered helpful?

Even if this is untrue, let us say that we use our faculty of reason to predict that action (a) will result in event (b), where (b) is considered to be a 'good' outcome. Action (a) is attempted and indeed results in event (b). Action (a) is then concluded to be a 'profitable' form of behaviour because of (b). This is still self validating.

I hope I've misunderstood you!

Are you seriously suggesting that only theism is responsible for this? What of those who have special needs of varying degrees?

But only a fool would try and argue that all human moral progress has come about through the exercise of reason.

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: E_muse ]</p>

Ms. Siv

E_muse wrote:
Is it really that subjective ? Dont we all agree that with the advent of science and technology our lives have improved and so many things, until now thought of as impossible are now not only possible but easy as well ?
Dont we all agree that we know farmore about ourselves, about our planet and about the universe than we ever knew earlier ?
Dont you consider that progress ?

Science teaches rationality.

People are capable of aggression and war, yes. All the more reason why we should have less and less labels for differentiation. Religion is one of the prime labels used. Sure, its not the only one but so what ?! I'm not saying the other labels are good, am I ?!

And your point would be ... ?

Who said that the ethics of scientific cooperation has been taught effectively ? In fact, in most schools, it is not taught at all.
With religions dominating the scene, its less likely they will be. Thats precisely the problem !

And I would totally disagree ! The scientific mindset was born in Greece and has nothing to do with theology. That everyone believed in a God then does not mean that was the cause.
Its thanks to science that we've learnt more and more about ourselves and our universe. And been able to see the falsehoods and irrationality behind most traditional religions.

Yes, it does.
Cognition : Having a basis in or reducible to empirical factual knowledge.
And religions preach belief in spite of, maybe because of a lack of objective evidence. You call that cognitive ?! I dont !

That religion corrupts it by no means suggests that other things do not.

You're making the same mistake here too. Where have I said only theism is responsible ?! And that others are also responsible does not make theism any less responsible, does it ?!

Look at all the things in our world today ... automobiles, TV, radio, computers, satellites, rockets, antibiotics, X-rays, nuclear power ... has reason given you those, or religion.
Even the bad products of science, the atom bombs, bio-warfare etc, they work.

- Sivakami.

cheetah

Actually, I said it is impossible to provide this evidence because the data has probably not been collected as yet, which is why I'd like to fund a study to collect that data and prove my opinion and personal experience which is that religion is evil.

I thought it sounded like a good idea when I was a little kid...just like when I thought God sounded like a good idea. I said to my Mom, "Hey how come we don't just do away with money, and then as long as people work, they get all the stuff they need in exchange for it." Sounds kinda like communism, huh? That sounds like a good idea. A perfect exchange of goods fro services. it breaks down when you start charting out reactions and results, whether just thinking about it, or using Game Theory.

Anyway, religion is like that. The Bible, for insatnce sounds like a good idea, but in practice, it has been used to much and distorted and twisted for awful, awful things. So, I say if something sounds good, but in practice doesn't work, it either needs to have an overhaul, or be gotten rid of completely.

Did I clear it up, pug?

Orpheous99

Religion has always been more evil than good. Just ask any non-believer who has fallen victim to theists trying to force religion on them by ANY means neccessary.

Orpheous99

Originally posted by pug846:

And when did communism sound like a good idea?

I suppose that like most Americans you don't exactly know what communism is. You just hate it because you were told to. In theory it sounds good because it was about people sharing and living in harmony with EVERYONE being equal. It just went a little too far in the sharing department.

pug846

Orpheous99 said:

And I suppose like most non-Americans, you assume us Americans don’t know anything non-American. I actually think for myself surprisingly enough and don’t “hate” communism because I was told so. I think communism is based on ridiculous assumptions about human nature and that, amongst other reasons, is why it has failed in practice. Anything can “sound good” if you merely prop up the positive aspects of it. “In theory,” Christianity can sounds good.

Orpheous99

Originally posted by pug846:

And I suppose like most non-Americans, you assume us Americans don’t know anything non-American.

Like it or not it is a fact that most Americans don't know and don't care about what goes on in the rest of the world. For example before 9/11 an Afghan was something you covered your furniture with.

I actually think for myself surprisingly enough and don’t “hate” communism because I was told so. I think communism is based on ridiculous assumptions about human nature and that, amongst other reasons, is why it has failed in practice.

The same could be said of Capitalism as well if Enron is any indication.

Anything can “sound good” if you merely prop up the positive aspects of it. “In theory,” Christianity can sounds good.

And that is the hook of religion.

Your original point was that there wasn't anything which sounded good about communism. There are some good things about it. You just don't go into it too far, the same with capitalism as well. You just take the good points in each and create a system using them.

pug846

My exact quote was:

“And when did communism sound like a good idea?”

I never claimed nor even hinted at the fact that there was nothing good about communism. As stated in my last post, if calling something a good idea means there are at least some good aspects of said idea, then nearly everything is a good idea.

Do you honestly think most people in the world are any different? Does the average European know any more about Afghanistan than the average American? I think it is a sad fact that most Americans don’t know more about the rest of the world – but I don’t think Americans are all that unique in that respect.

The most efficient system, IMO, is much closer to “ideal” Capitalism than “ideal” Communism. Capitalism very much takes into account human nature and human desires.

But, this has nothing to do with the topic at hand. ...I believe people were making unsubstantiated claims about how much evil or good religion does ( ).