h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well I lived in HK for a couple years...

Ok, so now we have our atheist communist, patriot - who's fully loaded with all the beliefs that he needs to be a fanatic. Of course, he'd be just as fanatical as a theist communist patriot, possibly more so. Atheism is not adding to the amount of fear and greed. Compare this to the Muslim fanatic, who's theism is an integral part of why she's happy to throw away his life for the cause - a gesture I don't see our communist friend performing any time soon, incidentally.

If you don't know much about Thatcherism, perhaps I'd be better off talking about the Free Market of Adam Smith. Is that a religion?

I wasn't being evasive - I was more irritated with myself for not being able to put into words my thoughts on first try - lets see if I can do better this time...

Fear of something you don't believe in. I can do better than that I can give you two reasons. The first is that, as you say, fear isn't rational. Arachnophobics do not believe that a picture of a spider which they see for 1/50th of a second is dangerous - but they'll still be afraid... (and won't know what of). Nor do claustrophobics believe that the walls are going to close in and crush them. But that doesn't stop the fear.

The second is force of habit. For the same reason that people continue to bite their nails well after they've been told that it's bad for them - I continued to fear well after the rationale for that fear had dissappeared.

> "MY point was that this fear was your own responsibility. If you didn't believe, you should have put your money where your mouth is."

Shoulda woulda coulda. We're not discussing whether mankind *should* be susceptible to fear as a hinderance to deconvertion. We're discussing whether mankind is, and whether theist religions take greater advantage of that fact.

Monotheism doesn't contribute to the Muslim's willingness to die, either. As others have said, Atheism is only the non-belief in God. It comes in various forms
The Free Market... Yep, it's a religion. IF people believe in it the right way. My point in trying to demonstrate that Atheism is a religion is to demonstrate that A. the definition of religion people were using in this thread at the time was far too limited and B. that all religions and quasireligions and pseudoreligions had a common ground, that they all exist to shield people from certain aspects of life.

"Fear of something you don't believe in. I can do better than that I can give you two reasons. The first is that, as you say, fear isn't rational." Uh, didn't I say that belief isn't rational, either? The Arachnophobe may accept intellectually that spiders aren't dangerous, but that's not the same as knowing it down in your bones.

Incidentally, I didn't mean "should've" in a judgemental way. I just meant that if you really believed in logic enough to take its authority over the irrational then you had no reason to be afraid of a God whom logic said was impossible. That's all.

And I do see a communist giving his life for a cause, although this is just a judgement on human nature, and unprovable either way.

I think monotheism does contribute - monotheism means a great big god, the natural instinctive response to great big things is fear, and fear is a good motivator. Admittedly, Islam adds a lot of beliefs which increase the fear and channel that motivation in a certain direction - but monotheism *does* contribute to that fear, and hence to the muslim's suicidal tendencies.

Do you mind if we substitute 'belief system' for 'religion': it seems to me to be more accurate to the class of things you're talking about here - and perhaps is a word we can use to mean the same thing?

I don't see that free market(ism) shields people from anything. It's just a possible way to run the economy. Keynesian economics would be another. State control another. What aspects of life are they shielding people from, exactly?

I agree that neither fear nor belief are rational - but I disagree that their irrationalities are identical. Fear is a conditioned response - just like Pavlov's dogs. If in such and such a situation the last ten times you have hidden in the corner with your pulse racing, you will be afraid the eleventh time, and will instinctively hide in the corner with your pulse racing.

Belief comes from the same source as memory - I believe that boiling water is painful because I remember it hurting me. I believe that Fermat's Last Theorem is correct because I remember reading in a reputable source that it had been proved. I believe that solipsism is invalid because I remember thinking that it was a rather depressing view of the world. As such it is based much more in the conscious.

It is hence entirely possible to be afraid of something you don't believe in, or conversely believe that something is very dangerous but be unafraid of it. Clearly they affect one another, but far from instantly.

When I said "see" I meant "see in the papers, et al" not "see in your mind". I could point you to half a dozen instance of Islam suicide bombers - but I haven't heard a whisper of similar behaviour from communists... maybe they do it more quietly?

"I think monotheism does contribute - monotheism means a great big god, the natural instinctive response to great big things is fear, and fear is a good motivator." - True, but an atheist belief system (Good word. ) could just as easily create its own great big things to fear. Monotheism, if used cynically, is convenient motivation, but so are lots of things. Patriotism can be used as such, but that doesn't mean that it's wrong to love one's country.

"I don't see that free market(ism) shields people from anything. It's just a possible way to run the economy."- True, which is why I said it's a religion IF people believe in it the right way. I was thinking of the classic, stereotypical foaming-at-the-mouth capitalists who saw capitalism as the great guarantee of freedom in the west, standing firm against the devilish commies. What it's protecting against here, in simplified form, is the idea that maybe no single ideology can guarantee freedom, or indeed that nohing may be able to. The ole' operating-without-information problem.

"Fear is a conditioned response - just like Pavlov's dogs." "Belief comes from the same source as memory." There's a contradiction there, I think. Conditioned responses are also based on memory, albeit occasionally subconscious memory. Have you never heard of subconscious beliefs?

Oh, and the reason you don't see communists giving their lives as often, is because the Soviet Union and China never felt quite as out- gunned as small unstable Islamic nations feel, so there's less motivation for the individual to make a Grand Sacrifice. It would have just looked out of place in the Cold War, what with the largest nations on earth backing you up and all. So yes, the communists do it more quietly.

Oh I'll agree that the fear isn't necessarilly a bad thing, like a shot. For starters, if the xtians are right, then fear leading to belief in their God is clearly a good thing. And fear of death means people don't throw themselves of buildings to see if they can fly. That wasn't what we were disagreeing about, as I recall...

I do see what you mean about capitalism being a religion - and indeed such mouth-foaming would fall under my own defn of a religion: the ardor and faith thing.

Conditioned responses are most definately *not* based on memory - you can condition animals even if their memory has been damaged by a stroke or suchlike. It's a very primitive level of operation of the brain.

I agree that you can have subconscious beliefs - but they operate at a higher (though still subconscious) level than the base emotions like fear. Fear's practically chemical - you can make people completely unafraid by knocking out a tiny part of their brain with EM waves (or a stroke...) - and knocking out that fear will have no *immediate* impact on their beliefs (though over time it may do, of course).

Do you honestly think that both fear and belief are irrational in exactly the same way? That's a pretty large claim to make...

I dunno - the commies did have the mean ol' US of A breathing down their throats - and most of western europe come to that - but perhaps you're right: desperate situations are needed before people will resort to desperate measures.

What we were disagreeing about, if memory serves, was whether or not theists are more prone than atheists to using fear as a motivator. I was making the point that both are certainly capable of doing so, and that there's no psychological reason to assume that people will be deterred from doing so if we give up religion. (What did I say that sounded like fear is a good/bad thing? )
I'm not sure that fear and belief are identical, although it does strike me that you may just have beliefs on a much lower level. The fact that fear is basically chemical may not matter, because the whole brain is basically chemical. Then again you could be right and me wrong about it being out of your control. (Here we're getting into where the mind ends and the brain begins, which is an entire debate in itself...)
Still, it does seem strange that such a high-level belief could cause such a basic visceral reaction. I can, from my own experience, understand some nervousness prior to conversion, but I can't understand why you would be so afraid of a God that reason (another high-level belief) told you was impossible. When I became an agnostic, my own fear was of disapproval, and of trying to fill the void left by God... but I guess this was the result of different experiences.
Out of curiousity, are you absolutely certain that your fear was of God specifically, or was there a chance that it was fear of being rejected by the community? This is a very personal question, and if you don't wish to answer, or the answer is no, I'll concede the point and leave it at that. I just ask because I'm still trying to reconcile the reactions you describe with a non-believer, and it still feels wrong.

> "Patriotism can be used as such[a motivator based on fear], but that doesn't mean that it's /wrong/ to love one's country."

See where I got it?

Thing is, along with ideas that increase the amount of fear in a belief system, there are ideas that decrease it: ideas like relative truth, postmodernism, universalism, tolerance, "many paths to heaven", "all religions are differing aspects of the same God", and so forth.

Consider this as a kind of random walk - as you add beliefs the amount of fear in your belief system may go up and down - but if it starts at a higher level it is more likely to end up higher than if it starts at a lower level. So monotheist belief systems are more likely to contain fear, and a larger amount of fear than atheist systems - though individual examples may not follow this trend.

Yeah - I guess we should stay out of the mind/brain debate... but I'll clarify that when I said 'chemical' I meant chemical as opposed to electrical. Most of what we might call the 'mind' is electrical - chemicals like adrenaline can be generated to flood the entire brain, but they're at a lower level than the electrical stuff.
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No worries about asking personal stuff - I started it. And I'm not the sort to get shy, in general... I think experiences may be an important factor - but probably what sort of person you are is a factor too.

At the time I was pretty young - around 11 or so - this is not an age noted for it's devastatingly accurate ability to distinguish fact and fiction. {heck, I still get scared by horror movies and ghost rides - and I know that they're not real too}. More relevantly perhaps, my school insisted on sending its pupils to chapel on a daily basis - and before then I'd gone to sunday school at the church. And because I was interested in religion, I had a clear idea of exactly what hell was like, and a distinct fear of being there. I wouldn't say it was a high-level belief - it was fairly pervasive, and I'd believed it almost as long as I could remember.

I recall suddenly coming to the realisation that I didn't believe... The reason was partially rational, partially the feeling that it was all rather ridiculous, and partially a hatred of chapel - and it was then quite clear to me that I didn't believe, even though I wanted to. After coming to that realisation, I got scared - and decided fairly quickly that I was going to make myself believe and praying in the "on the million to one chance you're out there, God, please help" style for that belief to come. And I got my belief back, or went into denial depending on how you look at it, in the next couple of days.

It was a UK school, so religion wasn't something one talked about - and none of the other schoolchildren were religious enough to start rejecting someone cos they were atheist... (other beliefs, perhaps - I guess they might have laughed at a buddhists meditation or whatever). And it was burning hellfire which was in my mind at the same time as the fear, not children's laughs.

The fear took several years to completely go: questions like "what if you're wrong?" would spark a momentary shudder before my mind got itself back under control - still do to a lesser extent. It was never at a Chainsaw Massacre level, but it was most certainly there, and turned out to be pretty persistent.

One final observation:

"After coming to that realisation, I got scared - and decided fairly quickly that I was going to make myself believe and praying in the "on the million to one chance you're out there, God, please help' style for that belief to come." Actually, that's arguably what faith *is*. There do exist people who believe in their religion even when they know, and can't answer, the rationales against it. For such people the fear you ascribe to theists contiues to exist even when theism is taken away; if they don't fear hell, they fear hell-on-earth. Such people do not share the faith many atheists put in reason to really change anything. See "Gimpel the Fool" by Isaac Singer.
I think that's where i'll finish up. Feel free to keep talking behind my back.

nah - that's a pretty good place to leave it - we seem to have got as much common ground as we're ever likely to...

Thanks for the chat.

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Are they free? How much do I get in it?

NM

i haven't read ne of the more recent postings, so this is a reply to the original.

i agree by and large with what Bilge sed, in fact it has bin sed that "god is prozac for the ppl". however i'm not so sure that the idea of a god and religion evolved as a result of this nead for a security blanket. i think it is more likely that it arose as a form of primitive science, based on guess work and assumption made from basic observations, rather than the logic and maths of real science. unfortunately it became twisted and corrupted into a brutal form of mind control, and rather than being abandonned as maths and subsequently real science and physics came into being, the power of those who controlled it and the fear they inspired in the ppl was such that it was too deeply rooted in society to overthrow in one go.

as a result, religion has held back scientific advancement at every turn since science always prooves religion wrong and the leaders of it feared loosing their power and so inspired fear and forced horrible punishments on ne1 who proved nething which went against what they taught. look at poor gallileo for example, he proved quite correctly that the earth revolved around the sun, and he was immediately placed under house arrest for the rest of his life by the church! unfortunately the same thing continues even today, though not quite so dramatically. however as an example, in Hawking's book "a brief history of time" he points out that in a conference the pope made an appearance and "granted permission" to the physicists to investigate the big bang, but "forbid" them from looking before the big bang since this was the work of god (in other words he is afraid that science will prove religion wrong again). unfortunately though, Hawking pointed out that he was glad the pope did not know the topic of the talk he had just given. i forget what that topic was, but that he was relieved that pope was not aware of it shows that still the church strikes fear into the scientific community and inhibits our progress.

the fears of the church leaders were well founded however. as science has slowly but inevetably advanced the church has lost more and more power. i doubt it would b able to place ne1 under house arrest nemore for example, and there was a time when members of the clergy could opt for a "religious trial" for ne crimes which they commited, in which the strongest "punishment", even for murder, was to simply take a pilgrimage.

back to the point of how it arose, i stated it was a form of primitive science. consider the following. as a sentient life form u are new to the world, u have little understanding or knowledge of the world which u inhabbit, nor has ne1 else. u are intensly curious however, and intend to use your apparent intellect to understand the world in which u live. the first things u c and learn about are your ppl, your way of life, how u exist and go from day to day suriving and living your lives. u have emotions, u interact, u create tools, u can spawn new members of your race. suddenly u stop, and u take a good look around...and u wonder. "i made these tools, i made this fire, this home, this family, my children, my parents made me. the parents of the creatures we see made them....but who made the first ones? those far before our parents. and who made all else that i see around me, the sky held above me, the green grass below, the trees all around, the blazing sun, the stars at night?" u are aware that things can b "made" for u yourself have made many things. but u could never make nething so grand as the world u see around u, in fact, to make this huge environment, everything below it, everything above it, and everything in it...well, it would be an immense task that would require a being so much better than yourself, so much bigger, so much more powerful. to create all this his power must be almost infinte!

and so, it begins.

u evolve the idea. initally i think polytheism was created, and subsequently monotheism evolved from this. so initially u would have created a community of beings, living much like yourself, but much more powerful. one would control the sun, another holds the sky up for u, another controls the thunder, another controls life, another love, and so u devise a god for everything. u believe that by worshipping these "gods", by pleasing them, they will be kind to u, and use their immense power to further aid u. and so u live your life to please them. somewhere along the line some1 needs to explain death. unable to cope with the possibility of an eternal unconciousness, they use your new found science of religion. they invent a new life, a second life. in avoiding the question of "what happens when u die in that life", two splinter groups emerge. one claims simply that u cannot die in the second life, that u will live forever. from this the idea of an immortal part of the body, a "soul" is devised. the second groups claims that u are reborn into another life in this world. live your life well, to please the gods, and they will grant u a better life than u had before.

eventually the idea of worshipping all these different gods becomes unappealing. it's hard, tryin to worship so many different beings, the ppl start to grow tired of it, and so, somewhere along the line, polytheism evolves, into monotheism. one god to worship, of infinite power. the leaders make stuff up as they go along, "do as i say, please god, and u shall b eternally rewarded in heaven. don't and u shall burn forever in hell"

this general theme contines up until today. now, ppl know enough to disregard religion, unfortunately it is so deep rooted, with 1000s of years of influence, that for some this is just too hard, and they can't cope without it, without the comfort it brings to the weak minded. but religion must evolve in order to accomodate the knew found knowledge and intelligence. orignally heaven was all green fields etc and hell was all burning fury. now some ppl believe in "personal" heavens and hells. the church doesn't necessarily endorse this, there's no word of it in the bible. ppl have just randomly made this up as they went along, with no proof, no reason except for guess work, just as they did in the beginning.

nething before "and so, it begins" is extremely likely and thought up based on logic, the paragraphs after it however are as much guess work and speculation as religion is itself (see, the pope ain't the only one, i can make stuff up too!)

one day religion will finally b cast off, and intellectual progress will continue uninhibited. but that's not going to b for a long time yet. i guess the best we can do is wait, and gently remind ppl of how wrong they are from time to time.

and a final note, for ne1 who would say "without religion there would b no morality", i pitty u, bcoz if u believe that without your "religion", to keep u warm at night and tell u how to live your life, u would b an immoral person....well, what sort of a person does that make u? and if there really was a god, looking down and judging us all, who do u think he would favour more: a person who follows his religion and believes he exists, but who were it not for the religion would b an immoral cut throat, or a person who does not believe he exists and shuns his religion, yet despite the lack of religion holds high moral values and tries to live by them?

(final final point which i won't go into in depth, the term "morality" is actually a relative term, what one person may consider "immoral" another may consider "moral" and neither is truly "right" or "wrong" no matter what the topic is!!)

Dirk, hello... As far as I am aware, Albania is (was) the only officially atheist state, and it doesn't have a shining human rights record as far as I know!



'their debate not ours' - I take it you mean believers, by the 'their' Interestingly, I have observed that atheists are like libertarians (there is some overlap,BTW). Both groups say "why don't they (believers/socialists) leave us alone to be free in our (un) belief, yet atheists and libertarians spend a huge amount of time debating their philosophical 'enemies'! Also, regarding someone's comments about how 'believers are stupid', DNA says something similar in Salmon of Doubt. I resemble that remark - I consider myself to be intelligent (though humourless) and it's interesting that Libertarians also assert that all socialists are stupid too, so there!
Christians are into personal responsibility big time, it's one of our issues!

>i think it is more likely that it arose as a form of primitive science, based on guess work and assumption made from basic observations.

The primitive science of the Hindus in India had the idea of the smallest and the largest measure of time.

Krati Krati = 34,000th of a second and 1 Kalpa = 4.32 billion years

As early as 100 BCE Indian Mathematicians had exact names for figures upto 10 to the power of 53 i.e. tallaakshanam.(In Anuyogdwaar Sutra written in 100 BCE one numeral is raised as high as 10 to the power of 140).

Indian astronomers have been mapping the skies for at least 3500 years.

The Law of Gravity was known to the ancient Indian astronomer Bhaskaracharya. In his Surya Siddhanta, he notes:

"Objects fall on earth due to a force of attraction by the earth. therefore, the earth, the planets, constellations, the moon and the sun are held in orbit due to this attraction".

It was not until the late 17th century in 1687, 1200 years later, that Sir Isaac Newton rediscovered the Law of Gravity.

In Surya Siddhanta, Bhaskaracharya calculates the time taken for the earth to orbit the sun to 9 decimal places.

Bhaskaracharya = 365.258756484 days.

Modern accepted measurement = 365.2596 days.

Between Bhaskaracharya’s ancient measurement 1500 years ago and the modern measurement the difference is only 0.00085 days, only 0.0002%.

Leonardo of Pisa known as Fibonacci, was one of the first people to introduce the Hindu-Arabic number system into Europe - the positional system we use today - based on ten digits with its decimal point and a symbol for zero.
This decimal positional system, as we call it, uses the ten symbols of Arabic origin and the "methods" used by Indian Hindu mathematicians many years before they were imported into Europe. It has been commented that in India, the concept of nothing is important in its early religion and philosophy and so it was much more natural to have a symbol for it than for the Latin (Roman) and Greek systems.

More info on Hinduism can be found @ http://www.hinduism.co.za/newpage1.htm



The H2G2 Guild of Wizards The Guild of Wizards U197895 is looking for wiz kids to join, though you don't have to be a wiz kid just know a bit about some subject that you think will be of interest to others or just bore the pants off them. This is an equall opportunities space open to all sexes, ages and abilities)

although i found the information very interesting, and i may look further into it, the didn't seem to b ne specific point to it in response to my comments, though never the less, interesting.

Hello is there any room for a Muslim view point here?

Adib