Koyaanisqatsi

OJ, all you've done is to state, "I just can't accept that there are no controlling higher beings than us."

That's it. You haven't qualified or in any way defined what these "higher beings" are other than to simply cop out with the use of the word "gods," or even provided a compelling enough argument for any of us to even consider your claim, primarily because you based everything on a particular qualifying definition of atheism.

How many times must it be pointed out to you that atheism means: without the belief in a god or gods and not rigid adherence to materialism?

So what are we to take from this other than you believe there are higher beings that could be described as having the same qualities written about in ancient mythologies, aka, "gods" and what's your point?

GunnerJ

However, this peace was bought with hundreds of years of conquest and civil war. And even after peace was secured, it bacame a weakness as the Roman economy was dependant on the spoils of war for income, and colapsed when the conquest stoped, and, finally, the invasions began. This seems like rather poor planing on the part of the gods, but is totally unsurprising if it were just humans at work.

Ojuice5001

Koy,

I started the original post by saying that I couldn't treat every possible view. For instance, I didn't address Islam even though it has a somewhat different set of pros and cons than Christianity. Christianity is just the form of monotheism I know best and care most about. Similarly I, like most theists, consider materialism to be the most important atheistic philosophy. Some people are materialists, and they considered my arguments to be directed at them. If I understand Synaesthesia and Jamie_L correctly, they are examples. Now a non-materialistic atheist, like a Muslim, might well think my arguments have limited application to him, but I can't be all things to all men.

I think I have a good definition of a god: An immaterial being, with at least the intelligence of a human, that affects causally indeterminate natural events.

Koyaanisqatsi

Ok. What is your evidence for such beings existing and/or relevance to their existence, since, in essence, you've just argued for the existence of humans that aren't made up of molecules, aka, ghosts?

Tell you what, just answer this and I'll bow out: are you trying to simply argue against materialism, as I am not a materialist?

Typhon

Thanks again for the reply OJ, however, I feel I need to stop you right here. I do not think that the above sentence, can be held as being valid, or even likely.

You like all humans are a member of a species that is not only accustomed to pattern matching, but will do so, even when there is no “intelligent” pattern to be discerned.

Take Rorschach ink blots. What do you see? Bats, people, monsters, butterflies, a whole litany of shapes and images, that seem to be there. Yet, none of these shapes truly exist, in the respect that they were created to be just that, or if they do, it is only random chance and our own constantly pattern seeking imaginations that place them there.

Furthermore, I would challenge you to provide some serious evidence that the world even seems to “act according to a plan.”

Then (and it’s a big then), I’d be interested in why if even if you did remarkably find credence for such hypothetical order/planing, you would assume that this supports “the existence of gods.”

That is akin to me discovering that there is indeed cheese in the fridge, and extrapolating from this that there must be crackers in the cupboard.

Anyway, logical fallacies aside, I’ll move on.

Well, I’m not sure where exactly to begin here. The history of Rome is I might suggest, a wee bit more complex than this.

Again, I have to say with all due respect, this is complete balderdash. One, how on earth are you defining the amount of “purposefulness” you expect to find? One might as well say that ants and bees should thus have gods while snails and slugs should not, because the former appear “more purposeful” than the latter. Two, again, there is no logical reason to suspect the existence of gods, even in the advent you randomly assign a higher than expected degree of purpose. One does not prove the other.

Then why don’t we talk about the doings of the Arian god of the Visigoths who sacked Rome? Never mind the fact that the religion of Rome was a long standing one of shameless “theft” and amalgamation of other culture’s deities, such as those of Greece and Egypt.

Strange, as these “inaccurate mythologies” didn’t keep the pagan Franks from conquering just about everyone within reach. And by the end of the 5th Century, Clovis had in fact converted to Christianity (and importantly, for the future of the region, not to the Arian sect of the faith).

I have to take great issue with how you are assigning “success” to historic cultures. The Celts were greatly “successful” as a culture. Their culture extended over more territory than that of the Romans, and examples of the gods, culture, and art, are found scattered throughout the near entirety of Europe. Why do we not then elevate Cerdiwen, Cernunos, the Morrigan, or Camulus-Caturix to be on par with the imaginary deities of Rome and Greece?

Anyway, as an amateur historian, I do not agree with your rather overly broad strokes regarding these historical groups and the significant of their cultures and faiths. To say that “(the Norse) their culture is near the border between successful and unsuccessful” is only to display your own misunderstanding of what both defines a culture and what defines success. I for one do not agree that you can place any such line or border, save in the most arbitrary and inaccurate of fashions.

It is interesting to note, that Rome as a culture and even as a state, long survived the death of their gods. Rome was in part a Christian empire by the time of Theodosius I, an empire which in many ways, can not be said to have fallen until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, more a millennia after the fall of Roma Invicta to Alaric, himself, an Arian, or Christian.

The Romans were infamous assimilators of gods. Their own pantheon was a mishmash of adopted gods and other cultures' belief systems. Romans had an extremely practical attitude toward religion, and more than a “ordered system,” the Romans had what amounted to little more than a lose collection of rituals, taboos, superstitions, and a whole pack of adopted gods. While there was indeed a spiritual side to Roman religion, much of its practice centered around a contractual pragmatic view of the gods and the importance of a state cult, which outlasted in many ways, the role such gods and religion took in the homes and private lives of your average citizens.

As for the gods themselves, they were a blend of other gods, most notably those of the Greek colonies, as well as taken from the old religions of the Etruscans. Over time, the names of many of the old Latin or Etruscan gods were kept, but they became to be associated with the gods of the Greeks. If you for example wish to venerate the gods of the Romans, you are really in truth worshiping the Greek pantheon, only with (for the most part) Latin names. Likewise the Romans borrowed much from the Egyptians and the cults of the East, among them, Christianity. Like other principally mystery religions, Christianity and similar eastern and Greek cults, grew and became increasingly popular in the empire, due in no small part, to the average citizen’s lessening interest in the traditional religion of Rome.

Hmm.

Well, again as I said, I’m more sympathetic to modern day pagans than Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or Jews, as they are unlikely to ever become the same threat to secular society that these other more modern and major faiths pose. That said, I can’t say that there is anything in the way of either historical or logical evidence to back up your own claims for such a reality being in fact true. This doesn’t of course mean you can’t hold to such beliefs, but I don’t see the logical or rational backing for them anywhere. They certainly aren’t any more silly than most other religions, but neither are they any less.

Best,

.T.

[ June 03, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

Ojuice5001

Yes. I think my previous posts contain evidence for such beings. I would say that most of these arguments are good ones against materialism, but insofar as a philosophy is different from materialism, it may not affect that philosophy.

Jayhawker Soule

What evidence?

JB01

Sorry to interrupt, but doesn't the phrase in bold strike you as at all absurd? Is it any more likely or coherent than

"An immaterial being, with at least the height of a giraffe"

or

"An immaterial being, with at most the aerodynamic drag of a penguin"?

Out of all the properties of all the species of animals, why does human intelligence seem most likely to be shared by "an immaterial being"?

[ June 03, 2002: Message edited by: JB01 ]</p>

Ojuice5001

Typhon:

I do think the gods take more interest in social insects than in slugs. And in warm-blooded animals more than fish, etc. (The same pantheons rule humans and animals, so that Mars cares about not only human aggression, but animal fights as well. The god who rules ants and bees, BTW, is Quirinus.) Purpose can be seen in the tendency to seek one (non-entropic) goal rather than being just any old which way. For example, Io and Europa have a system of volcanoes and an ice-covered ocean respectively, and Jupiter (he rules his namesake planet as well as many other things) probably guides them to stay volcanic and oceanic. I infer he can do more things with those moons than his others. (And I know Io and Europa are less entropic because they are warmer; the point is that he has a foothold in events there and not elsewhere. I don't know whether that's theistic evidence, since I'm not sure how much purpose you should expect on Io and Europa. That was just an illustration of purpose.)


Um, yes there is, because natural events exhibit one degree of purpose and natural events directed by a god exhibit another.

You have good points about syncretism. I don't think believing in a syncretic religion is all bad, but it certainly makes the gods less well-defined. All religions have some kind of confusion hidden in them somewhere ; it comes of believing in gods who are partly unknowable.

[ June 03, 2002: Message edited by: Ojuice5001 ]

[ June 03, 2002: Message edited by: Ojuice5001 ]</p>

Ojuice5001

All sorts of things you passed over. Go back and read it. The purposeful appearance of cultural history, the stability of certain societies, etc.