Science-Religion. Which wins?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1761

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<p>I am not positive whether you have regularly perused this thread, so this I may merely be speaking to a void, but for the sake of response, have you even bothered to read the previous set of comments from months’ past? I would also recommend that you read some piece of modern literature discussing the biological development of religious belief, and preferably something that discusses its origins, psychology, and emotional appeal. The God Delusion, an international bestseller, is probably the best on the market. I do realize, though, that you have been implacably conditioned to immediately plug your ears and sing “lalala” at any type of argument that validly criticizes the legitimacy, relative incongruities, values, and fallacious epistemic and ontological assertions of your faith, along with its historical tendencies as a sociopolitical despotism.</p>

1762

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<p>Your reasoning is flagrantly senseless. If I claim that ten million invisible pink unicorns exist on the cloud directly above me does that automatically validate that claim as fact? And there are not “already millions of examples” of any god or gods populating the cosmos. To the ancient Greeks, the onset of the spring was due to Persephone’s emergence from Hades, not because of the underlying principles of celestial mechanics. To primitive Scandinavian culture, thunder was considered “proof” of Thor’s existence. To the Aztecs, instances of rain served as the “sound evidence” for Tlaloc’s existence. The list reaches near-infinite proportions, yet there isn’t a single valid example. Of course, in response to this you are simply thinking, “I don’t believe in any of those fake gods you mentioned, I only believe in Allah, the real god” – completely oblivious to the point I am demonstrating that you don’t provide the slightest consideration of your being yet another deluded follower of an entity that has no substantive basis beyond operating as a point of deference for the common Islamist culture. There is no evidence for the Christian god, the Islamic god, the Hindu gods, or any of the gods that have been aggrandized through the institution of ritual or for the preservation of a common fraternity throughout the course of human culture.</p>

1763

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<p>Let me clarify your thought process – it is arrogant for the freethinker to have a independent mind that operates on reason and evidence, yet as a Muslim, it is not arrogant for you to reject all other deities that humans have believed in and proclaim Allah as the incontestably divine providence governing humanity? </p>

<p>This is precisely equivalent to a majority group attacking a minority population simply for doing something that is no different from what the majority is accustomed to doing. I find it extraordinarily ironic that you attack the lack of belief as “arrogant” on the basis of an ideological position that is about as conceivably arrogant as any that an individual may possibly hold.</p>

<p>If “god” is defined in a self-contradictory fashion, it doesn’t exist. If it is defined in a way that contradicts well-established facts about reality, it doesn’t exist. It is perfectly reasonable to deny alleged gods that clearly don’t exist and are, even to the most piously entangled individual, mere figments of human imagination. You don’t believe in Zeus, Odin, Votan, or Mictlantecuhtli. Is it arrogant to disbelieve in those as well (the beloved figures of non-extant cultures)? </p>

<p>Clearly, asserting such a vacuous statement and constructing falsehoods (“you don’t need to prove that a god exists – there’s millions of examples”) is no way to defend a system of belief.</p>

1764

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<p>Pascal’s Wager, in the way in which it is typically instructed, seems superficially convincing, but when one reverses the argument into it’s more plausible alternative, it is a very poorly constructed and ill-considered argument. There are several things wrong with adhering to religious belief on the basis of such. Most individuals grasp the principle of the concept without truly considering it’s actual implications.</p>

<p>Firstly, it’s basis of reasoning is contingent on a variety of baseless presumptions. It assumes that some god exists – more specifically, that a particular god exists – and that it is omniscient (privy to one’s belief), omnibenevolent (fair and rewarding to belief), omnipresent (everywhere at the same time), and omnipotent (the ability to do anything and, in this particular case, the power to send people to delusional fantasy worlds). It postulates the existence of an afterlife, a transcendentally immortal soul, diametrically opposed netherworlds, and that the bloke will be dazzled by those who worship and glorify it. </p>

<p>It shoulders the presumption that an inherent “will to believe” is required – not only hoping that something is true but genuinely believing it to be so regardless of the extent to which one’s rationality informs oneself. </p>

<p>For instance, pretend for a moment that Pascal’s Wager was intimately associated with the promise of a blissful afterlife if one adhere’s to the farcical belief in a flat Earth. If this were the case, I would greatly think that there would be a greater quantity of individuals who dispute the reality that Earth is round by nature regardless of the evidence that irrefutably corrodes such a perspective. Simply put, the fear of mortality or the “guarantee” of an unpleasant transcendent existence fosters irrational belief even when confronted by the reality that the Earth is indeed spherical. Even if one were inclined to reflect upon the outlook, it is quite doubtful whether one could genuinely and unaffectedly believe it.</p>

<p>Moreover, Pascal’s Wager posits the assumption that disbelief in some god warrants an eternal damnation to some unbearably unpleasant underworld. (Like “heaven,” this is an ignorant, brashly conceived entity, but I will expand upon that shortly down this chain of posts.) This is patently wrong since many human beings that have ever existed have had absolutely no exposure to the belief in a personal god who dictates post-mortum experience on the sole criteria of worship and principled conduct. Would this equitable, warmhearted god penalize those with absolutely no contact with Christianity or the aforementioned conviction? Is every being that existed before Christianity (or any religion that uses a post-mortum dichotomy of transcendent abodes) or those that never have contact with the religion relegated to eternal torment?</p>

<p>By the same token, it presumes there is a unmistakably transparent reason for rewarding pressurized, blind, or dishonest faith. In essence, it is assumed that a deity favors indiscriminate belief over logic, rationality, and acknowledgment of objective evidence. Moreover, it fancies that the faith of a believer is fundamentally superior to the personal courage of the secularist who thrives on the awe of understanding and leads a virtuous life – doing what is right for the common good rather than selfishly sucking up to some perception of a big boss governing all of humanity.</p>

<p>Lastly, Pascal’s Wager thrives on the outlook that there is one true god and thus the notional adherence to polytheism, personified animisms, or the “wrong” god of other monotheistic cultures results in zero benefit and hence damnation. Also, for causticity’s purpose, it isn’t any less substantiated that some supernatural conception thrives on punishing its supporters and rewarding its dissidents, skeptics, or those simply unaffiliated. </p>

<p>But criticism of Pascal’s Wager certainly transcends beyond its fabricated idealisms and spurious assumptions. The stiff, uncomfortable truth, as I stated many pages back, is that there exists an infinite number of hypothetical gods or transcendent spirits, each dedicated with their own capacities, faculties, and jurisdiction over a particular realm, as dictated by their followers who perceive themselves as subordinates. Allah, Yahweh, Jove (and his supporting cast), Tlaloc, and Quetzalcoatl are just as vacuously conceived as the Flying Spaghetti Monster and invisible pink unicorns. </p>

<p>In essence, one is selecting out of an infinite variety of deities. So while choosing a specific god, one’s probability of selecting the “correct” one is one out of infinity. So one’s prospect of choosing the “correct god” is effectively zero. And by choosing incorrectly, there exists an infinite quantity of deities just as inclined to commit one to eternal damnation. In summary, even proceeding with the abundance of (irrational and baseless) assumptions enumerated above, all of which are required for this argument to progress, the likelihood of one transcending to “paradise,” “Valhalla,” “the hereafter,” or whatever is essentially nil without regard to one’s degree of religiosity. </p>

<p>One’s ideological stance, quite frankly, is much safer when reversed since selecting the “wrong religion” (which, from a mathematical standpoint, is guaranteed) is the most hazardous option. Let’s say that one believes in Christian god and juxtapose this conception alongside a god who punishes based on adherence to irrational beliefs. (I’ll call him Rufus.) When reversing the argument, the four paradigms appear as such (again, the same assumptions are in place for the sake of facilitating argument):</p>

<p>[ul][<em>]If one believes in the Christian god and Rufus does exist, one will be relegated to “eternal damnation,” an infinite deficit.
[</em>]If one believes in the Christian god and Rufus does not exist, one will not be compensated, a finite deficit.
[<em>]If one does not believe in the Christian god and Rufus does exist, one will be compensated with “eternal bliss,” an infinite benefit.
[</em>]If one does not believe in the Christian god and Rufus does not exist, one will not be compensated, but will have lived one’s life, a finite benefit.[/ul]</p>

<p>Following Pascal’s Wager in reverse is a much more secure option given the virtual certainty of selecting the incorrect god to worship. The argument is infinitely more profitable for the atheist and detrimental for the theist who must claim worship to a particular god to enter such an erroneously conceived gambit. Hence, as far as probability theory goes, which is a very prevalent and inescapable facilitator of dialogue in ontological discussions, atheism wins with flying colors.</p>

<p>Even Homer Simpson has it figured out: “Suppose we’ve chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we’re just making him madder and madder.”</p>

1765

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<p>As I stated within one of my previous posts, religion must integrate the findings of science to maintain any degree of legitimacy. Although to those unreceptive to scientific findings or irremediably indoctrinated, none of that is needed for the persistence of groundless convictions.</p>

1766

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<p>This metaphysically conceited, pseudo-intellectual flapdoodle is just as preposterously ignorant as a flat-Earther proclaiming, “If the world was round, all the water would fall off! Clearly, the round-Earth theory is absurd.”</p>

<p>If humans could somehow procure this “spiritual radiation” propagated from a intangible domain, these emanations would somehow have to interact with the brain and produce a thought. But there is no mechanism for this in the brain. Neurons (brain cells), and the collective operations and physioelectrochemical discharges of these cells produce mental activity. They do not have any magical association with an efflux of periodic paranormal disturbances or govern on the basis of the fiat from some supreme fairy-wizard. </p>

<p>The overriding issue is that you have absolutely no concept of what makes for logical argument and what properly accounts for proof. Regarding this subject, you regularly parrot the false analogy of how human thought – and perhaps you feel this way for other encephalized organisms – is not any different from a stack of blocks tumbling over. It’s a false conceptualization to parallel the two and it preserves none of the decency of honest discussion to babble about a subject matter of which you have zero comprehension and a merely unveils a clear unwillingness to free yourself of such conceited, erroneous misunderstandings. But I don’t plan to squander my time in criticizing this vacuous argument of yours once more. Blocks falling from a stack due to gravity is not in any way comparable to the collective activity of neurons composing a soft-tissued organ. Your perceptions on the origin, nature, and science governing the brain is in no way reflective of the contemporary research and findings of neuroscience. And you can’t really defend such a perception by placing it in the “my beliefs” category, as if wrong ideas are somehow sacredly inviolable, immune to criticism, and exempted from the ordinary demands of honorable discourse. The only “logic” that you have regarding this segment of the dispute is your own pious indoctrination, not any type of valid argumentation.</p>

1767

<p>305 more posts for mifune to overtake Mosby!</p>

1768

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<p>This common dichotomy associated with the post-death experience is merely an antiquated contrivance employed by authorities to instill in their subjects a compelling imperative for accordance with a common idolatry. It serves as an antidote to the fear that metaphysical questions surface. Without this groundless intangible, there is little substance to ensuring a common devotion. However, belief in a reward after death is a substandard motivation for “moral” behavior while alive. It is far more splendid to assist other individuals exclusively out of genuine consideration for their suffering rather than doing so because you believe that the creator of the universe is scrutinizing the circumstance and will favorably reward that but punish you for not doing so. It’s a remarkably defective incentive to help other people when far more honorable reasons are available. </p>

<p>Each dominant religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle endemic among competing cultures and sociopolitical systems and not one has ever thrived by passively enduring the prevalence of conflicting dogma. So, quite inevitably, there is going to be some rudiment of conviction that one’s own faith is transcendentally superior to that held by outsiders. Hence, it clearly isn’t unfathomable precisely why you adhere to such a daftly articulated conviction.</p>

<p>Given the near-universality of religion’s endeavor to propose post-death rebirth or continuance, correspondingly, there are a variety of unpleasant netherworlds waiting for those who believe in the “wrong god” or those who adhere to the “wrong religion.” The fact that death is the functional termination of biochemical activity and nothing of any cosmic significance – a biological matter, not one of religious tradition or philosophical inquiry – is not in line with the indiscriminate opinions of the ignorant men who authored scripture, does not fulfill the emotional desire for immortality, or enable for the institution of a subordinating imperative.</p>

1769

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<p>You, like MosbyMarion, do not have the slightest concept of what makes a logical argument or of what makes for proof.</p>

1770

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<p>So much for irrational dismissal of b3n5p34km4n’s perfectly valid and sobering point. [Post</a> #955](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065173755-post955.html]Post”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065173755-post955.html) is a spot on remark to eastfrobeauty’s completely asinine “you’re going to rot in hell if you don’t believe in Allah” comment.</p>

1771

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<p>Here we go once again with this doltishly conceived “not believing in god is arrogant” charge. Is it arrogant to base one’s outlook on reason and evidence rather than superstition, delusion, or Bronze Age mythology? </p>

<p>To expand upon this, when a Democrat criticizes the ideological agenda of a Republican, nobody says that such is arrogant because a general understanding of politics informs oneself that common public discourse on the subject is naturally an exercise in argumentation. But to religious folks ingrained in their religious and spiritual indoctrination, even a mild argument against their convictions is construed as illiberal, parochial, and ill-tempered. Many people are provoked to displeasure on account of departure from prevailing attitudes, principally because they consider such deviation as a criticism of themselves. The stereotypical accusation against secularists as intolerant, arrogant individuals is predicated on the current social zeitgeist that religion has acquired some bizarre immunity in which one is not allowed to criticize religion. The idea itself, that baseless, ill-founded ideas are impervious to objective assessment is socially unhealthy and undemocratic.</p>

<p>You final statement quoted above is a completely unfounded assertion. One can only admire the existential puzzle by indiscriminately believing in some sky-fairy? The scientific community is the specific authority responsible for systematically investigating the physical world and for better comprehending the “mystery of existence.” In turn, this population is predominantly composed of those who hold an atheistic perspective or a variant inclined towards non-belief. And in order for one to dedicate an entire career to investigating the essence of existence, one must, in your terms, “appreciate” it in some sense.</p>

1772

<p>There is always the fallacious charge that morality is impossible without a worship or belief of god or through a divinely established spiritual ordinance (the argument for natural law). </p>

<p>First of all, natural law inherently relies on the equivocation and reification between two meanings of the word "law.” Legislative laws (positive law), are prescribed politically for the sake of social order. Natural law is an argument to account for a potential (and ultimately mistaken) basis of describing why such a particular moral paradigm was established. Contrarily, natural law (as it pertains to morality) is descriptive in origin. It is the conviction that there exists a body of overriding indissoluble moral principles that are divinely conceived as the basis for all human conduct. One might think of it as a method of cheating one’s way into accounting for the common demarcation of “right” and “wrong” – avoiding scientific findings in favor of “God did it” (argumentum ad ignorantium) type of reasoning. It was a satisfying justification in the eras when science was a supremely primitive venture.</p>

<p>Truth be told, there is no evidence that there is a set of immutable moral laws that govern human conduct. In fact, there is a multitude of evidence to the contrary, as moral edicts have evolved over the course of time and vary by culture and within each individual. In the U.S., it has only been through a moral progression that increasing social inequality has been provided to racial minorities, women, and homosexuals, all subsets of a population that were discriminated and vehemently ostracized within Holy Scripture. In fact, I’ll surface some unpleasant quotes regarding slavery’s “justification” on the basis of that stated within the Bible:</p>

<p>[ul][<em>]“[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation…it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.” Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America.
[</em>]“There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral.” Rev. Alexander Campbell
[<em>]“The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example.” Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina
[</em>]“The hope of civilization itself hangs on the defeat of Negro suffrage.” A statement by a prominent 19th-century southern Presbyterian pastor, cited by Rev. Jack Rogers, moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
[li]“The doom of Ham has been branded on the form and features of his African descendants. The hand of fate has united his color and destiny. Man cannot separate what God hath joined.” United States Senator James Henry Hammond.[/li][/ul]</p>

<p>Clearly, if scripture is applied to the social malignancy of slavery, the abolitionists were on relatively tenuous footing. Nowhere in the Bible is slavery criticized as being a diabolical, draconian institution. Even the story of Jesus itself, contains no dialogue regarding the tragic incivility of the practice. Fortunately, abolitionists gained enough political power to eradicate slavery in most parts of the world as of the late nineteenth century, but this paradigm shift in moral understanding came at a supreme cost to the Christian faith. If the Bible is so supremely oriented on all epistemological and deontological matters, why was it so supportive(/devoid of any explicit condemnation) towards a patently amoral practice?</p>

<p>Texts from Holy Scripture have been used in the past to defend the self-interests of the plutocracy and to adamantly oppose democratic tendencies; to condemn Galileo asserting that the Earth revolves around the sun simply because the scientifically ignorant men who wrote scripture had it reversed; to ■■■■■■ scientific and other intellectual progress; to substantiate the injustice and subjugation exposed to homosexuals; to keep women in a perpetual state of inferiority with regard to education, professional aspirations, and suffrage; to justify slavery, segregation, apartheid, and genocide; and to vindicate war, to persecute racial minorities and religious dissenters. The problem with the documents that collectively form the Old and New Testaments is that it simply reflects the value and mores of a culture who wrote them in the time of primitive civilization. Many passages within the Old Testament reflect a tribal mindset that portrays “God” as despising everyone that a particular culture hated (in this case, the Israelites resentment of the Egyptians) and bringing misfortune upon the adversary. Even the New Testament portrays Paul as acknowledging that the institution of slavery is beneficial so long as it is “well-meaning.” He also reveals attitudes toward women that are deeply mortifying in comparison to today’s more enlightened standards (at least in many cultures). </p>

<p>It shouldn’t take a great intellectual effort to realize that the Bible is nothing more than a book comprising the thoughts of a society impacted by their chauvinistic customs, tribal culture, territorial hostility, and profound deficit of scientific knowledge. </p>

<p>Moreover, nothing in the Bible is written as if it could not have been written without the divine inspiration from an omniscient god. If such were the case, the book could make explicit, unequivocal, and falsifiable prophecies with respect to the course of human events. Rather, the work does not consist of a single phrase that could not have been conceived by an individual residing in the primitive periods in which it was written. </p>

<p>Today, the atrocities articulated within the Bible are largely informed by a type of contemporary maturation – an evolution in the social zeitgeist – and a departure from the tribalistic vanity articulated in its literal form. </p>

<p>So given the vast degree of alterations within the morals today and those from millenia ago, is it rational or legitimately defensible to believe that there is a indissoluble standard of moral conduct? The answer is clearly no.</p>

1773

<p>It’s also worth noting that the association between religion and morality is completely absent. There is no statistical evidence demonstrating that religious people are any more religious than the less devout. In fact, according to correlational studies articulated by Sam Harris (and referenced in A Letter to a Christian Nation), segments of the U.S. Population with the greatest religious piety typically show the least moral conduct in terms of crime statistics. Of course, correlation studies should be taken for what they are – not scientific ventures demonstrating causal influence – but the point illustrates that one simply cannot make the erroneous, far-fetched claim that, without religion, there would be no morality. </p>

<p>Religion is basically a universal element of human culture, but morality preceded religion as evidenced through primate studies (there are unequivocal precursors of moral behavior in nonhuman primates). Chimpanzees, who lack the ability to swim, will risk drowning in an effort to save fellow companions. Chimps are more likely to share food with those who have groomed them. Capuchin monkeys demonstrate their irritation if provided with a less satisfying reward than a partner for completing the same chore. But there is no evidence of any primitive degree of religiosity exhibited in other animals. Religion is a recent addition provided from the evolutionary process; morality, as most predominantly evidenced in primate studies, isn’t. As humans grafted a cognitive machinery separate from their sapient ancestors, religion provided a means of governing sociality, explaining the ineffable (in an inevitably foolhardy way, which unfortunately still persists), enforcing rules for ordered human conduct and endowing them with a mythical origin, and serving as a social structure to govern and account for the increasing complexity of social and population dynamics. So it’s not surprising that religion became so inextricably associated the issue and became a platform for the dissemination of moral standards, ordinarily to the point where religion or spirituality is fallaciously deemed as the source or cause of morality itself. Nothing about human behavior is so strikingly discontinuous as to suggest an act of divine creation and consequent belief that humans have interminably existed in their present form. </p>

<p><a href=“http://evolution-of-religion.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/harnden-warwick-1997-psychological-realism.pdf[/url]”>http://evolution-of-religion.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/harnden-warwick-1997-psychological-realism.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Historically, human morality has also been critically confined by the fact that scrupled constraints are selectively practiced – they are observed within a particular social coterie, not with respect to outcasts. Although in some societies there has been a cultural evolution that has largely idealized the notion of extending civil freedom to all distinctive social groups, this primitive sense of discrimination persists. The prominent irony is that our most virtuous social behaviors – collectively deemed morality – have evolutionary ties to our most ignoble behaviors – warfare and brutality. </p>

<p>In academic circles, the moral philosophy of Hume and Kant are often deliberated, Hume favoring morality’s basis in emotion, while Kant’s derived from the basis of reason. Empirical evidence favors Hume’s thinking. Humans might celebrate rationality in the state of practical affairs, but emotions – not circumspect cognition – have evolved to serve as our predominant compass. We are more directed by spontaneous, automated, and emotionally gratifying judgments than more bemusing, calculated undertakings. For example, we naturally avoid physical harm and potentially destructive confrontation because intense hostility has been exposed to the blind force of natural selection while pragmatic considerations have not. </p>

<p>Morality, quite simply, is a sense of right and wrong borne out of broad approaches to pacifying conflict (a threat to the social good) on the grounds of reciprocated values. The premise of such is not founded on absolutist standards of “good” and “bad” behaviors but rather through intellectual and social capacities for constructing societies in which mutual values restrict unique behavior through a network of approval and disapproval. As such, chimpanzees do indeed possess some of the defining behavioral characteristics that are manifest in our own moral systems. Morality, as it is commonly understood, provides humans with a framework of conduct that seizes upon the relevant interests of the entire community, indeed the fundamental nature of human morality.</p>

1774

<p>I also find it relevant that conceptually parallel moral decisions are not always handled in the same fashion. Earlier (as in months ago), I mentioned the classic trolley problem, where conscience would typically inform us that, if a railroad car were heading in the direction of five people, it would be morally proper to pull a level directing it into the path of one person and eventually killing him rather than the initial five. But place a different context to this: perhaps you do not have access to the lever and are instead watching the car about to barrel into these same five individuals from a bridge overhead. It would, of course, be morally virtuous to drop a blunt object in front of the path of the trolley thereby halting its path. But very few could bring themselves to do it if this “blunt object” were a fat man. However, would it be morally permissible if this impeding force was a fat villain?</p>

<p>Here is a different abstraction to the problem. Suppose that there are five individuals in a hospital setting who are in desperate need of an organ transplant to survive. Each patient requires a separate organ and each could be salvaged by selecting, at random, one person from the waiting room and removing the necessary five organs from that individual. Of course, doing so will kill that unfortunately chosen individual. Sacrificing one for the sake of five makes perfect moral sense in ordinary circumstances and under the premises of pulling the lever in the trolley scenario, but in this context, similar to pushing the innocent fat man, it is patently amoral. </p>

<p>But aside from this minor digression, the underlying point of all this is that morality is just as robustly grounded in neurobiology as language acquisition, motor control, visual perception, or any other neural capacity.</p>

<p>I wrote more on the topic earlier: [On</a> Morality](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065075512-post715.html]On”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065075512-post715.html)</p>

1775

<p>Here is a quote from Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist, who describes a moment during his childhood in Montreal, Canada, which I consider to be a relevant empirical test regarding the subject of morality:</p>

<p>“I was a true believer in Bakunin’s anarchism. I laughed off my parents’ argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the test at 8:00 A.M. on October 17, 1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. By 11:20 A.M. the first bank was robbed. By noon, most downtown stores had closed down because of looting. Within a few more hours, taxi drivers burned down the garage of a limousine service that competed with them for airport customers, a rooftop sniper killed a provincial police officer, rioters broke into several hotels and restaurants, and a doctor slew a burglar in his suburban home. By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty cartloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order.”</p>

<p>I think we can safely assume that the vast majority of those involved adhere to a belief in a personal god, yet apparently, by this empirical test, their god had absolutely nothing to do with their anarchic, amoral tendencies.</p>

1776

<p>Humans commonly interpret the properties of their behavior – intelligence, morality, cooperation, and the use of symbolism as “proof” that our species is the summum bonum of “creation.” Although humans and other animals share and partake in many behaviors that may be considered predecessors to moral behavior, humans have an extraordinarily difficult time isolating their own higher-order, abstract psychological interpretations of those behaviors from their actual causes. In essence, it’s a matter of re-interpreting more primitive behaviors according to an abstract code. Explanations of human cognition are often interlaced in the ignorance of metaphysics or with a conceited, speciesist outlook dedicating to humans a divine etiology, which is a near-universal theme in religious context. Moral reasoning is still often diseased with the anti-scientific excrement of emotionally inspired inferences, impressions utterly bankrupt of analytical thought. </p>

<p>[Morality</a> may have roots in our primate ancestors - Telegraph](<a href=“Morality may have roots in our primate ancestors”>Morality may have roots in our primate ancestors)</p>

<p>There is also the argument that natural laws (as it pertains to empirical phenomena) were instituted by a superhuman intermediary (or intermediaries) as a means of creating the most effective possible type of universe, which necessarily opens the question as to where a divine providence obtained these laws. </p>

<p>Why did a god (or gods) issue a specific set of laws and no others? If one is of the notion that it did so from its own good pleasure, without any actual justification, then there is something not subject to law. If one says, as more conventional theologians do, that the laws sanctioned by a divinity were a fundamental need to provide some laws at the expense of other (to purportedly create the best possible universe) then this god is subject to law itself. Hence, introducing a god as an intermediary to evade a physical explanation merely leaves a line of reasoning devoid of any validity and provides no advantage even from a theoretical standpoint. </p>

<p>Even if one did grant the false premise that there is a supernatural basis behind the creation of natural laws, and, by extension, a law-giving god, it does not follow that the given god is the god (or gods) in question and the one the apologist have in mind, given the technically infinite degree of possibilities. It could just as likely be a group of invisible pink unicorns, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Santa Clause, as it could be Yahweh, Jupiter, or Odin. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/vstenger/Fail.pdf[/url]”>http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/vstenger/Fail.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

1777

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<p>Karl Popper highlighted the notion that falsifiability is the quintessential attribute of the scientific endeavor. However, his basic principle has been fleshed out in greater detail since the most tapered interpretation of his idea would illegitimately disqualify far too many subsets of plainly valid scientific enterprise.</p>

1778

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<p>This is completely wrong. Atheism is not a religion or philosophy – it is the absence of belief in some superhuman controlling power. I think much of the misconception is derived from the fact that many are so embroiled in their own religious beliefs that they cannot quite fathom the possibility that someone truly lacks a sort of spiritual conviction. If atheism is included within the definition of religion – a particular system of faith that pursues belief in and worship of a supernatural divine supremacy – then the term “religion” itself is rendered incoherent and semantically meaningless. If religion is used as a conceptual parallel to “viewpoint” – which you seem to be promoting – then, in addition, all of philosophy is considered religion, which certainly isn’t a sensible or practically conceived position. Even an outlook or viewpoint cannot be considered philosophy unless the given definition is broadened to its most ordinary conversational usage, which is useless from an argumentative or academic standpoint. </p>

<p>Even theism itself cannot be indiscriminately considered synonymic with religion. Nor can one extend or delimit the definition to separate it from the collective constituency from which it is composed. That is, religion isn’t technically religion without some sort of component of organization. To override this point is to erroneously generalize the definition of religion in such a fashion as to leave it bankrupt of any functional meaning or categorical clarity. </p>

<p>To have a religion, one needs a set of distinctive features in addition to simple belief. Characteristically, there are distinctions between sanctified and profane objects, ritualized customs, prayer and other liturgical forms of purported communication with the gods, a moral protocol regarded as a sanction of the supernatural, a general specification of purpose and one’s place inherent in such, organization of one’s life in accordance to the premises of the stated purpose, and a social camaraderie entwined through a common belief and/or deference to a superhuman controlling power. To truly qualify as a religion, it must possess these properties to maintain a lasting cultural significance. As reflected in reality, theism exists outside of religion, just as religion exists outside of theism.</p>

<p>But as far as atheism is concerned, labeling such as a religion, is a profoundly untenable objective stance. It’s tantamount to assigning a hair color to a bald man or an eye prescription to a blind individual.</p>

1779

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<p>Adenine already clarified his analogy and it states nothing relevant to the point by responding with “genocide is in no way equivalent with the questioning of science” since that swings the fundamental point out of context. Overall, when this Holocaust quibble was at its peak it was a very pointless, small-minded dispute. Both factions (creationists and Holocaust deniers) are emphatically expressive, well-funded, artificially persuasive, and adept at seeming well-educated on topics with which they fraudulently distort the facts to satisfy a preconceived conclusion (and hence, topics with which they know absolutely about). </p>

<p>The analogy veritably extends much more deeply than the way in which he was articulating it. In twentieth-century history courses (that cover the Holocaust as part of the curriculum), should we “respectfully” submit to demands to “teach the controversy” that the Holocaust never occurred and provide it with “equal time” in the classroom or neglect to teach it at all as if it were a non-occurrence? To anticipate the possible rebuke that there is little evidence that Holocaust denial is actively being taught, that isn’t the point, since it provides an additional example of a lunatic ideological cult that propagates false information. But please realize that Holocaust denial does leak into North American classrooms and such is largely taken for granted in Muslim and Arab societies. In fact, in Great Britain, the Holocaust has been omitted from various school curriculums from the year 2007 onward, in an ill-conceived liberal effort to avoid emotive, anti-Semitic sentiment from Muslim students. Should we even consider fatuously discourteous claim (and, by extension, respect the “belief”) that the Holocaust was simply a hoax propagated by some nationalist Jewish movement? Absolutely not. </p>

<p>Here was his point, as concisely as I can state it: </p>

<p>Arguments over the validity of the Holocaust and Darwinism are both profound illustrations of futile disputes that originate from one sides ideological agenda, misrepresentations, and fallacious contrivances and they both necessitate discarding massive volumes of historical and scientific evidence, respectively. Those who deny the existence of either are complete embarrassments to the foundations of reason when it becomes a matter separate from honest ignorance – when the evidence has been offered to them and they willingly choose to remain shrouded in deception. It is valid to debate topics within evolution just as it is unconditionally valid to research the historical details and implications of the Holocaust, but arguing against their very overwhelmingly supported evidential basis is not intellectually respectable. It isn’t “censorship” per se, as many fringe ideologists tend to purport – their ideas are just plain wrong.</p>

1780

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<p>This is the biggest piece of pseudo-philosophical/-logical/-intellectual nonsense that I have ever read. This metaphysical conceit is designed to appear as if coming from a well-educated individual, since those who don’t know otherwise will believe that this must be an intelligent, sophisticated line of reasoning simply because their brains can’t follow it.</p>

<p>To analogize this fatuous argument, if one were to claim that humans maintain cellular metabolism by breathing gaseous arsenic rather than oxygen, would my indication of their appalling inaccuracy imply that my “belief” [that human metabolism does indeed function on oxygen] is fundamentally wrong?</p>

<p>Clearly, you are propounding nothing but abstract rubbish – what one would euphemistically call complete bovine excrement.</p>