Monotheism vs Polytheism

[Traitorfish]

Atheists blindly believe there is no God. What proof is there that there is no God?

I've chosen to define God as non-existent, and who's to say that my definition is closer or further from the truth than any other?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm not saying it exists at all though.

My point is that it's as impossible to prove that it doesn't exist as it is impossible to exist that the Christian God doesn't exist. Scroll up and read my first post about this!

I don't need to read your first post. I think that due to our other conversation in the Star Trek thread, this was an unfortunate choice of analogies.

I'm done with this part of this conversation.

 

[warpus]

cool cool cool

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

What if humans in the future are able to create a universe simulation so complicated that the beings in that universe are consciousness. Would these humans become gods over that universe?

Would these beings ever know their universe is just a simulation?

What if there are other universe that dont exist in our reality and we don't exist in their reality, do that mean we are just fiction?

But in the end do these question matter? Probably not because it don't change anything for me if Im just a character in somebody else story and that somebody else don't exist in my reality.

Trying to answer these questions don't make us wiser or better or anything else really.

Worth to mention that everything we experience are made up in our brains. Senses are used as imput but it is the brain that use the imput to "create" our reality. Consciousness is probably just an illusion and we are really nothing more than just an advanced game/story, nothing holy about us or anything else.

In that case pretty much anything could exist and maybe does but the existences would be completely separated from each other.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Deep

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Deep

Hahaha

It was ment to just show how pointless such discussions are. People spend their whole life and still wont be able to answer these questions. And what about death, we already know what happens to the body when we die so we already have the answer.

 

[warpus]

That's why religion can be so powerful, IMO. If you formulate it in a certain way (like most world religions are), it's impossible to disprove.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

That's why religion can be so powerful, IMO. If you formulate it in a certain way (like most world religions are), it's impossible to disprove.

And unlike me they tend to sell something people want such as eternal happiness something that have even happend with atheism with eternal oblivion.

Ignoring that if we go by the rules of nature the body including the brain should just be a bunch of atoms unlikely to support claims of religion nor eternal oblivion.

It is interesting to think about how a bunch of building blocks (atoms) can create thinking creatures such as humans, something which may be completely fiction in a universe such thing can't happen but such universe would be fiction for us.

In the end it don't matter, we may think we are all great and such but can we change the rules of our reality, if we can't are we just characters in an advanced game? Universe do have rules and such which make it quite similar to a game, maybe it lack goals but that is not really not needed.

 

[Birdjaguar]

That's why religion can be so powerful, IMO. If you formulate it in a certain way (like most world religions are), it's impossible to disprove.

No. Religion is powerful because it solves problems for people. The question of being able to disprove god or not is secondary. Religion organizes the world and answers questions that most find difficult. The inability to disprove it contributes to its longevity in the face of science.

 

[warpus]

No. Religion is powerful because it solves problems for people. The question of being able to disprove god or not is secondary. Religion organizes the world and answers questions that most find difficult. The inability to disprove it contributes to its longevity in the face of science.

My point though was that out of all the religions in existence, throughout human history, those that can't be disproved lingered around the longest and are now the dominant religions on the planet. I don't think that's a coincidence.

 

[Birdjaguar]

My point though was that out of all the religions in existence, throughout human history, those that can't be disproved lingered around the longest and are now the dominant religions on the planet. I don't think that's a coincidence.

Correlation is not causation. I don't think that people were interested in disproving god with any seriousness until the 18th c. or a bit later. Of course the great religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity) had dissenters and they each dealt with them in their own way. Typically, they splintered. The issues were usually over dogma and belief and perceived failure to meet the needs of the faithful; not about whether god was real or not.

Real or fake, religion is powerful and not just because a church is powerful. It is powerful because it has the ability to change people's lives from the inside.

 

[warpus]

Correlation is not causation. I don't think that people were interested in disproving god with any seriousness until the 18th c. or a bit later.

It's not necessarily a case of people wanting to do that, but rather it becoming clear that the Norse gods just weren't real, for instance. My point is that if you design a religion around a monotheistic mysterious entity the existence of which can't be disproven, it will be a lot harder for people to reach that "a ha!" moment that's caused a lot of other religions to wither away into obscurity.

For example, if Christianity was centered around the idea that the Earth rests on top of a turtle, then it wouldn't be a major world religion today, as it's pretty easy to prove that this isn't the case. Do you see what I'm getting at? Many of the old polytheistic religions that have died out were demonstrably false, once our level of technology was high enough for most people to realize this. I don't think it's a surprise that the major religions in existence today aren't like that - they for the most part aren't disprovable. They continue existing for other reasons as well, but the dynamic I mention (which happens to be more common among monotheistic religions) seems to be a theme. It makes sense to me that it would be. If we could prove religions wrong, far less people would believe in them.

Makes sense to me that in the information age the major religions are those that did not make claims that we could easily look up in an encyclopedia and realize that they are false.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

No. Religion is powerful because it solves problems for people. The question of being able to disprove god or not is secondary. Religion organizes the world and answers questions that most find difficult. The inability to disprove it contributes to its longevity in the face of science.

What problems does it solve? If I pray, will my dad be back in his right mind? Will my own health problems be magically cured?

No. It might help people arrive at conclusions to dilemmas (ie. "What would Jesus do?"), but all the prayer in the universe isn't going to stop a hurricane that's coming toward you, or put out a forest fire that's about to burn your house down.

Interesting that you think the world is "unorganized" for non-believers.

It's not necessarily a case of people wanting to do that, but rather it becoming clear that the Norse gods just weren't real, for instance. My point is that if you design a religion around a monotheistic mysterious entity the existence of which can't be disproven, it will be a lot harder for people to reach that "a ha!" moment that's caused a lot of other religions to wither away into obscurity.

For example, if Christianity was centered around the idea that the Earth rests on top of a turtle, then it wouldn't be a major world religion today, as it's pretty easy to prove that this isn't the case. Do you see what I'm getting at? Many of the old polytheistic religions that have died out were demonstrably false, once our level of technology was high enough for most people to realize this. I don't think it's a surprise that the major religions in existence today aren't like that - they for the most part aren't disprovable. They continue existing for other reasons as well, but the dynamic I mention (which happens to be more common among monotheistic religions) seems to be a theme. It makes sense to me that it would be. If we could prove religions wrong, far less people would believe in them.

Makes sense to me that in the information age the major religions are those that did not make claims that we could easily look up in an encyclopedia and realize that they are false.

So when's the last time somebody took a couple of fish and loaves of bread and zapped up enough for a large crowd? Anyone on the forum change water into wine lately? I'll concede the walking on water thing. I walk on water every winter, although of course in my case it's frozen water. Liquid water? Sure. It's not very deep, but there actually is a very thin layer of water between a person's shoe and the ground when they're walking through a puddle. But you can't tell me that anyone can step out of a boat in the middle of a lake and walk on the surface, unless they're a mosquito or some similar small lifeform that doesn't break the surface tension.

Bushes don't talk. Snakes don't talk in any language other than whatever snakes speak to each other. You need a hell of a lot more than just two of a species to repopulate it.

People don't live for centuries. Century-old women don't get pregnant. Nowadays it's not necessary for a woman to be physically intimate with the father of her child in order to become pregnant and give birth; all she needs is a clinic or hospital and some man who donated sperm. But this technology wasn't around 2000 years ago.

Unfortunately, the modern world is still in a state of "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with facts."

 

[Birdjaguar]

I know what you are getting at, but...

It's not necessarily a case of people wanting to do that, but rather it becoming clear that the Norse gods just weren't real, for instance. My point is that if you design a religion around a monotheistic mysterious entity the existence of which can't be disproven, it will be a lot harder for people to reach that "a ha!" moment that's caused a lot of other religions to wither away into obscurity.

Design is probably not the word you want to use for the big four. The Hinduism > Buddhism thread developed very slowly over centuries. IIRC Hinduism was already 1500 years old when Buddhism broke away and "slimmed down" the bloated practices of Hinduism. In the same way the Jewish > Christianity thread began about 800 years before Jesus. It then took another 300 years for Christians to get their act together and create the New Testament. At every stage internal conflicts drove decision making and splintering. that went right on through the Reformation and into modern times. Design was hardly part of that process at any stage.

For example, if Christianity was centered around the idea that the Earth rests on top of a turtle, then it wouldn't be a major world religion today, as it's pretty easy to prove that this isn't the case. Do you see what I'm getting at? Many of the old polytheistic religions that have died out were demonstrably false, once our level of technology was high enough for most people to realize this. I don't think it's a surprise that the major religions in existence today aren't like that - they for the most part aren't disprovable. They continue existing for other reasons as well, but the dynamic I mention (which happens to be more common among monotheistic religions) seems to be a theme. It makes sense to me that it would be. If we could prove religions wrong, far less people would believe in them.

Makes sense to me that in the information age the major religions are those that did not make claims that we could easily look up in an encyclopedia and realize that they are false.

To Quote a line from Zen Buddhism: "The flowering branches grow naturally, some long some short." If (as seems likely to me) humans are drawn to religion and religious practices because of how they can improve their personal lives, then over the 5000+ years of history many religions will appear, blossom, and fade. Very little is permanent. Current knowledge and culture force changes as does the big sweeping events of history. Perhaps Norse religious practices faded because the Norse lost the race to be important in history rather than because somebody figured out that the rainbow bridge was just water vapor. The major religions of the world are rooted in places that have long cultural histories that were not wiped out by invaders.

Keep in mind that most of the world is religious and has faith in invisible things that cannot be measured. It is a pretty good track record for fake news however it is sustained. And the fact that splintering continues says more about value/power of religion in general, than the efforts of any one religious path.

 

[Birdjaguar]

What problems does it solve? If I pray, will my dad be back in his right mind? Will my own health problems be magically cured?

No. It might help people arrive at conclusions to dilemmas (ie. "What would Jesus do?"), but all the prayer in the universe isn't going to stop a hurricane that's coming toward you, or put out a forest fire that's about to burn your house down.

Interesting that you think the world is "unorganized" for non-believers.

Valka, you are blind to how religion affects people and lost in the weeds of "prove to me two fish can feed 500 people". And I never said the world was unorganized for non believers. I said that religions organize the world for those that accept a given religion. I made no mention about non believers. You organize your world as you see fit using the tools you choose to keep on hand. You live in a bottom up world where the details combine to build a whole. If a detail fails it can ripple through and change the layers built upon it. "Oh look we've discovered germs!" And the everything based on humors goes away and a new world based on germs is built. Religion tends to work in the opposite way. It is built from the top down. "I believe big picture X is true and therefore the following details must be true too." People accept the fishes and loaves story, not because it is proven true, but because once they accept that the Bible is true, what is contained it has truth too. Some might say it is literally true, others that is is a story about god and it contributes to the big picture even if it is not exactly true. You frequently say that if any part of the story is false the whole story is false. Your goal is to demand truth and tear down the whole religious structure by showing how the details are wrong. That works in science. It doesn't work with modern religions because they are built differently. Finding errors in the Bible won't bring down Christianity. To sway a born again Christian who has accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, you have break their faith, not dispute whether or not water was turned to wine.

More of same pointlessness.

So when's the last time somebody took a couple of fish and loaves of bread and zapped up enough for a large crowd? Anyone on the forum change water into wine lately? I'll concede the walking on water thing. I walk on water every winter, although of course in my case it's frozen water. Liquid water? Sure. It's not very deep, but there actually is a very thin layer of water between a person's shoe and the ground when they're walking through a puddle. But you can't tell me that anyone can step out of a boat in the middle of a lake and walk on the surface, unless they're a mosquito or some similar small lifeform that doesn't break the surface tension.

Bushes don't talk. Snakes don't talk in any language other than whatever snakes speak to each other. You need a hell of a lot more than just two of a species to repopulate it.

People don't live for centuries. Century-old women don't get pregnant. Nowadays it's not necessary for a woman to be physically intimate with the father of her child in order to become pregnant and give birth; all she needs is a clinic or hospital and some man who donated sperm. But this technology wasn't around 2000 years ago.

Unfortunately, the modern world is still in a state of "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with facts."

Your failure to understand those you despise for their failure to think like you do is a part of the problem.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

In the same way the Jewish > Christianity thread began about 800 years before Jesus.

Christianity began 800 years before Jesus? Since he was the inspiration for it, that's a pretty neat trick. Which method of time travel was used?

Valka, you are blind to how religion affects people and lost in the weeds of "prove to me two fish can feed 500 people".

"Lost in the weeds"?

I'm not blind to how religion affects people. Some religious people are actually not hypocrites. They don't do despicable things six days a week and think everything's okay because some preacher or priest forgives them on Sunday. Some of them actually keep the vows they made at their weddings. Some of them actually don't use the bible as an excuse to discriminate against other people, or insult them, or (here's the biggie!) kill them. And some religious people can do all this without bragging about it.

The ones who can't seem to do these things are in the majority, in my experience. They're hypocrites. They mouth the words but don't practice what they preach, harass women at clinics, go doorknocking and insist on inflicting their preaching on people at 8 am, make laws to prevent women from accessing adequate health care, scream and rant about non-heterosexual people wanting to marry and adopt children, impose their own views on patients who want a dignified, assisted death by refusing to allow it or refer the patient to another doctor/facility (apparently they believe, like Mother Teresa, that suffering is "beautiful"), and they can't seem to understand basic ethics or honor.

You know what one of the things that put me off religion at a very early age was? Some school kid puffed out her chest and said, "I'm BETTER than you, because I'm CATHOLIC." As if that makes a good person. Henry VIII was Catholic some of the time, when he wasn't something else, and there were times when it varied from day to day depending on what his mood was in the given moment, and he had two of his wives murdered (might as well say three, since his abominable treatment of Catherine of Aragon led to her death), and he was planning to have his sixth wife killed - luckily for her, he died before he could carry through with it. And all because they either couldn't provide him with a healthy son, or they broke their own marriage vows (something Henry did regularly with all of his wives), or in the case of Catherine Parr, she dared to have her own opinions about religion and wrote books about it.

And I never said the world was unorganized for non believers. I said that religions organize the world for those that accept a given religion. I made no mention about non believers.

yourself. If you don't want to give that impression, you should choose your words more carefully.

You organize your world as you see fit using the tools you choose to keep on hand. You live in a bottom up world where the details combine to build a whole. If a detail fails it can ripple through and change the layers built upon it. "Oh look we've discovered germs!" And the everything based on humors goes away and a new world based on germs is built. Religion tends to work in the opposite way. It is built from the top down. "I believe big picture X is true and therefore the following details must be true too."

Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? Somebody believes in God and suddenly someone can just magic up a pile of fish and bread out of nothing? That's Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. Check out the episodes where a couple of greedy Ferengi got stranded in the Delta Quadrant and found a planet of gullible people who revered them for being able to create stuff out of nothing. Turns out they had a Federation replicator and used it to make the locals believe they were gods.

People accept the fishes and loaves story, not because it is proven true, but because once they accept that the Bible is true, what is contained it has truth too. Some might say it is literally true, others that is is a story about god and it contributes to the big picture even if it is not exactly true.

At this point you're going to do "rolleyes" at me and accuse me of being literal, right? So explain what metaphorical thing is being talked about by the multiplying of fish and bread. It's a gathering, there wasn't enough food, Jesus snapped his fingers and POOF! Suddenly there's enough food. If that's really a thing, why do these supposedly loving supernatural beings let famines go on? Aren't modern Africans worth zapping up some food to at least keep the kids from starving? Funny how the miracles slowed to a crawl and then stopped, as more sophisticated BS detectors were developed over the centuries.

You frequently say that if any part of the story is false the whole story is false.

BS. Augustus was real. The Emperor referred to in the "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" is Tiberius, Augustus' successor. King Herod was real (although he was already dead by the time Jesus was said to have been born, so there goes that whole "kill the male children born in such-and-such a year" schtick; remarkably similar to the Moses story, right?). Evidence was found to confirm the existence of Pontius Pilate.

But these individuals being real is no reason to expect people to accept the nonsense of a virgin giving birth ("God got me pregnant" sounds a lot like Zeus and Leda... or a story made up to cover an unintended pregnancy that was achieved the normal way... or just a normal birth that was embellished), or the other "miracles."

Your goal is to demand truth and tear down the whole religious structure by showing how the details are wrong. That works in science. It doesn't work with modern religions because they are built differently. Finding errors in the Bible won't bring down Christianity. To sway a born again Christian who has accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, you have break their faith, not dispute whether or not water was turned to wine.

More of same pointlessness.
Your failure to understand those you despise for their failure to think like you do is a part of the problem.

Never assume you know my goals, because it's abundantly clear that you really don't have a clue. They're the same as they've always been, whether we're discussing religion or a long list of other things you and I have discussed - or tried to discuss - over the years.

People can believe whatever they want. But to shoehorn religious fantasy into science classes, law courts, parliaments (and other places where elected officials draft bills intended to become laws, government policies pertaining to health, marriage, adoption, the environment, sex education classes, and so many other public areas is just not ethical.

Did you know that in my province, Catholic schools are allowed to violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and discriminate in their hiring practices? They claim that it would be against their Charter rights to have to hire non-Catholics, but please explain to me why a math teacher or a phys. ed. teacher or a janitor would need to be Catholic. Math is math, no matter the religion of the person teaching it or the student learning it, gym classes presumably don't require religion (although there's a lot of "thankyoujesus" that goes on when an athlete wins a race or game; I wonder if these same people are bothered when Jesus doesn't feed the starving people in Africa or turn the hurricane aside - probably not; after all, a race is much more important, right?), and why would a janitor need to be Catholic? Is he or she expected to pray the dirt away?

My goal is to get the fantasy out of these areas. As I said in one of my comments on CBC.ca earlier, religion has no place in Parliament. It also has no place in the laboratories, or the courts, or a doctor sticking his nose in the air and preaching at a terminally-ill cancer patient who would prefer to die with dignity and not be forced to suffer because of "God's will." It has no place with nurses refusing to provide proper care to women who have had an abortion.

My goal is also to stop the hypocrisy. It's a tall order, admittedly. Get back to me when all religious people in the world stop breaking their own rules, and actually practice what they preach.

I predict both of us would have to become immortal for you to do this. And even then, it won't matter. Entropy wins.

How's the purple part of your sig coming along? It's a classic example of what I'm talking about.

 

[W|M]

Christianity began 800 years before Jesus? Since he was the inspiration for it, that's a pretty neat trick. Which method of time travel was used?

IIRC before Jesus became a whole thing, it was thought by Jews that there'd be a messiah who'd do lots of good things in the future (c.f. Book of Isaiah)

 

[warpus]

The major religions of the world are rooted in places that have long cultural histories that were not wiped out by invaders.

Yes, but if they were easily disprovable, then they probably wouldn't have survived as long as they did. Cultural tradition is one thing, but again, I don't think it's coincidence that none of the major world religions revolve around tenets that can be easily shown to be false. It's a lot easier to keep a tradition going if you can convince people that it is in fact true.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I think you'll find that relgions are very good at continually revising themselves to maintain non-disprovability. Well, Christianity certainly has been at any rate.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I think you'll find that relgions are very good at continually revising themselves to maintain non-disprovability. Well, Christianity certainly has been at any rate.

"God put the fossils there to test our faith"/"The Devil put the fossils there to trick us, don't fall for it!"




Or Ken Ham, teaching school kids to act snotty in science class and ask the teacher, "Were you there?" (my mother would have slapped me for speaking to an adult like that, and in my elementary years it would have meant at least detention, if not the strap). A smart teacher would reply, "No, I wasn't. Were you?"

IIRC before Jesus became a whole thing, it was thought by Jews that there'd be a messiah who'd do lots of good things in the future (c.f. Book of Isaiah)

That's not what Birdjaguar said. He said the religion started changing 800 years before Jesus. If they were expecting a messiah who would do good things, why didn't they start doing good things themselves, and not wait to be told to do them? Eight centuries is a long time to be lazy about it.