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

>>atheists are very rational<<

Really? Can't say I've noticed that myself. Isn't that like saying men are very rational? i.e. it's a gross, unsubstantiated generalisation based on the misconception that one's beliefs inevitably translate to reality

GOD. From the Saxon god, good. The source of all good; the supreme being.
1. Every man is presumed to believe in God, and he who opposes a witness on the ground of his unbelief is bound to prove it.
2. Blasphemy against the Almighty, by denying his being or providence, was an offence punishable at common law by fine and imprisonment, or other infamous corporal punishment.

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"Modern Christendom has devised and invented a God that can neither condemn men nor save them, a God that can neither wound nor heal - an impotent God."

Time waits for no man ...

"Well, if one wants to keep their faith strong, they should attend a place of worship where they can meet others in the community, and listen to sermons and pray together."


i.e. To remain faithful one needs to gather with members of your chosen cult to reinforce the delusions, by means of ritualised behaviour and regular indoctrination by a cult leader. Forming an insular community where socialisation is limited mostly to those that share the delusion. Thus suppressing one's reasonable doubts. Promoting fear and ignorance of out-groups and outside ideas. And a dependency on the in-group for validation.

Kea, atheism is not a belief. It is to be without a belief in gods. Were you suggesting it was belief? Or pointing to the bias in the flawed assertion.
Atheism doesn't make a person rational. But rationalism can, perhaps must, lead one to take the atheist position. Therefore one must expect a correlation between rationalism and atheism.


Christians "can be" rational, but their faith is entirely irrational, such is the nature of "faith".

<>

all hail Woden

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wotan_(god)

>>Kea, atheism is not a belief. It is to be without a belief in gods. Were you suggesting it was belief? Or pointing to the bias in the flawed assertion.
<<

I was meaning that many atheists believe that they are rational, when I don't necessarily find them to be so



<<
Atheism doesn't make a person rational. But rationalism can, perhaps must, lead one to take the atheist position. Therefore one must expect a correlation between rationalism and atheism.



<<

I think there is a difference between the ability to be rational and Rationalism as a belief system. All humans have the capacity to be rational, but that capacity varies from moment to moment.

But Rationalism is a belief, one that often contradicts itself (where people belief that it's reality for instance).

I do see a connection between Rationalism and atheism. I don't think atheism equates with being rational though - seen lots of illogical arguments from atheists.

Like this one :

<<
Christians "can be" rational, but their faith is entirely irrational, such is the nature of "faith".
<<

What about Christians who experience god directly? We can't really know if Christian faith is always irrational.

"What about Christians who experience god directly?"

How am I meant to take this question?

It seems implicit that you believe that more than one person calling themselves Christian have had personal experience with a supernatural entity.


Suspending disbelief for a moment. But still retaining a rational mind.
How do they know that the supernatural entity is G-d?
Could it be Satan? Perhaps it's Loki, he is said to be quite the trickster. Or even the disembodied supernatural manifestation Glob the Dead Worm Master of Mars dead a hundred thousand years and getting bored with it.

"We can't really know if Christian faith is always irrational."

Yes we can. And we do.
Christianity is not based upon observed realities. It's based on a bible.
Different denominations claim to know how to interpret this bible. But cannot agree. To chose a denomination one has no rational manner of choosing which kind of Christian one needs to be in order to please God.
One could decide not to be part of any denomination and interpret the bible for oneself, but then one is faced with the fact that accepting the bible as truth is irrational, it conflicts with all observable reality in its account of how there came to be an Earth, people and and life. Its contains 613 laws. Many of which are criminal, repugnant to those incline toward ethical behaviour and contradict others of the same 613 laws.
Central to Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus. But aside from the bible there is no account of his zombie rising.
To base one's life on the promise of forgiveness for sins that only are sins if one accepts that there is a god passing laws, and an eternal life promised by a man that you cannot be sure existed let alone rose from the dead after dying a death that was only needed in order to provide a loophole for the entry of sinners into heaven... is irrational.

Br Stealth
Some of the tenets in Christianity (comprising all sects) are irrational. That can be said of any religion. It's definitely not correct to say that ALL tenets of belief in Christianity are irrational, they're not.

For example, believing in the "unseen" is NOT irrational. The human senses can not perceive everything!
Peace

You're confusing "unseen" with "unprovable".

There's still the assertation that what you cannot see or prove must not exist.

Which is insisting that your reality and experience is the one that others, even those who know differently, must live to and agree with or be 'irrational'.

Please take this as a pretty much neutral POV for a moment, not 'mine' as such, I'm disassociating as best I can.

One person has 'seen' or had contact with 'angels' (in their words) and feels genuinely in touch with the heavens. For instance.

Another person has a genuine belief that they are alien abductees. They have lost time with no rational explanation and are not people generally inclined to hysteria or attention-seeking, perhaps a professional.

Yet another person feels inspired to climb mountains, give up earthly posesions and feels that they are doing the 'right' thing and coming closer to a higher state of existence through these actions.

Now... You may not agree with or believe these people. But assuming that they must doubt their own experiences is a position I couldn't put myself in. My experience of the scent of a truffle will be different to yours, doesn't mean either of us are wrong.

Believing in something other than the animal and plant life we can see and measure on earth is not irrational, it's simply not popular if you think that rational = measureable and boxable.

Just cos you havent got a shelf on your library doesn't mean the books that would go there must be useless, just irrelevant to you!

I cant see gravity but it is highly probable that the evidence given in support of it as a phenomenon actualy happening is true. Ive done little experiments of my own and they do come tot he exact same conclusons as the ones offerd by people putting forward this idea of bodies with mass being attracted one to another.

Whereas things that sound outlandish and imporbable and which the people offering them as true use flawed book full of proven falsehoods and contradictions to back up their wild flights of fancy these I will continue to dismiss as hogwash.

I dont see the point in giving such ideas or the people who put them forward much intellectual respect or accepting them as rational.

If you do that's your call.

I'm not talking about people who are saying 'I believe god speaks to me and therefore the bible is true' I'm talking about people who have all the proof they need that something otherwise (to them) unexplainable has happened to and they fit it in the box that is the closest match.

A rose by any other name? From the point of view of someone who doesn't know what a rose is?

For all of the codswallop that people like to think of as 'weird' occurrences that are explainable, occasionally, just occasionally, something else manifests. Sometimes to one person, sometimes to many, that is not fully or satisfactorily explainable by any means that others would refer to for proof. Perhaps it sort of covers it but not quite, or just isn't the same thing at all...

Now if those people want to say it was god or fairies or ghosts or the earth mother or aliens doesn't matter. I still dont think that anyone else can judge whether or not something happened simply because it doesn't fit in their view of the world. I mean, we're all entitled to our opinions, but to someone who has had something happen to them, who maybe feels uncomfortable about it themselves as they'd love to explain it away as something normal but cant, it's not like they are asking you to agree with their pov necessarily, but accepting that maybe something exists outside of your own experience is the difference between being narrow and open minded imo. Because as soon as you state that there *cannot* be and that *anyone* who disagrees for whatever reason must be 'irrational' or 'delusional', you are expressing a belief just as strong and rigid as those who are certain that god or gods do exist and have an interest in our world and that we should all be aware of them. Because those people genuinely feel that to do otherwise is irrational and that yuo are deluding yourself if you turn away from this 'obvious' truth.

blicky
>>use flawed book full of proven falsehoods<<
The Bible may have flaws, but the subject is of Divine origin and contains basic truth.
ie. There IS a god, whom we call God, and He is ONE (monotheistic)

The existence of God is NOT a proven falsehood

>>I cant see gravity but it is highly probable that the evidence given in support of it as a phenomenon actualy happening is true<<
We all agree, I imagine, but just because I accept the witness of my ancestors who were totally convinced of the truth of the Apostles of God (as am I) along with their truth and wisdom, you say that that's irrational.

It seems to me that the knowledge of science is making mankind arrogant and proud and thereby becoming "his faith".
ie. They think that people's theories are more true than Apostolic truth
Peace

This post has been removed.

I hate modded posts.

Did anyone catch it?

Posting:
"There's still the assertation that what you cannot see or prove must not exist."

It is not an assertion I'm making. What you've done there - without malign intent I suspect - is turn my position and more broadly that of sceptics into a straw man.

String Theory has not been proven. No-one is claiming that what it describes "must not exist". But to go around saying that it has been "revealed" to you as truth in a "revelation" and that because "it's feels right" and one has felt the "vibrations of the universe" one is justified and rational in going about denouncing rival theories in physics and standing on the street proselytising about it and teaching it to kids as a Transcendent Truth... is .

"Which is insisting that your reality and experience is the one that others, even those who know differently, must live to and agree with or be 'irrational'."

I'm certainly not insisting that anyone "live to" any specific end, let alone my "reality". That is something I think can be fairly said to be in the magisteria of religion, as at fundamental level the definition of religion is "way of life" and the binding principle of religions is insisting that there's is the proper "way of life". It's a grandiose claim that they've all failed to back up.

In a free society the religious have the right to make their claims for their chosen faith.
It's the same right that is afforded to the BNP when they market their vision for a society. And no-one ought to be denying them that freedom.
In functional free society people have the right and the duty to points out when groups like the BNP or the Catholic church are making claims that have no basis in reality and are damaging.

"Another person has a genuine belief that they are alien abductees. They have lost time with no rational explanation and are not people generally inclined to hysteria or attention-seeking, perhaps a professional."

Actually I've met just such a person. He gave a talk at meeting of Skeptics in The Pub. Seemed a sincere and nice enough chap.
It was apparent to me from his description of his experiences that he suffers from a form of sleep paralysis/parasomnia.
That he believes that his experiences are real and that sleep paralysis is not sufficient to account for them says more about his emotional investment in his beliefs than it does about how true they are. That he cannot accept a rational explanation such sleep paralysis before the reality of both extra- and intra-terrestrials shows than in this area of life he is being irrational.
It's understandable that he does this, it was clear how much of his life and emotion he invested in this belief. I really felt for him.

And no-one is saying that aliens "must not exist", just that is irrational to dismiss adequate explanation in order to retain and extraordinary belief that one has emotional investment in.


"Now... You may not agree with or believe these people. But assuming that they must doubt their own experiences is a position I couldn't put myself in."


I experience from time to time very strong and vivid senses that I have experienced something before in my dreams that didn't happen in reality until some medium to great time later.

I don't neither believe not attempt to convince others as true that there say, people in the future using tachyons to tell me that the Prince of Darkness is coming.
Why not?
Not because no-one has yet detected a tacyon despite years of research down coal mines with expensive equipment.
Or because it's there isn't a lot of room for a physically existent future in physics.
Or even because I doubt the existence of a Prince of Darkness.

But because I can think of two much more likely explanations though without the help of having of these experiences whilst inside a Positron Emission Tomography scanner I will never know which it is.

1. Whilst asleep my brain puts together bits of information and thoughts I've had turns them into a dream, some of those dreams have logical coherence sufficient for some them to be predictive of real world events and I really do remember having dreams that by chance reflected future reality.
2. Sometimes there's a explosion of activity in the creative centres of my brain giving me a false memory associated with a real event.

A PET scan could tell me which part of the brain the experience was coming from, the memory or creative centre of the brain. Not knowing is frustrating in the face of such vivid experiences. But vivid personal experience is not a basis upon which for me claim that Second Sight is real in any sense other than an occurrence in the brain.
If I describe these experiences no-one has grounds to doubt that I experience something. I claim to have Second Sight anyone has grounds to question how rational judgement is.

"Believing in something other than the animal and plant life we can see and measure on earth is not irrational, it's simply not popular..."

It's staggeringly popular. Just without good reason.

There was something else I was gonna say, but I forget...

The first part of your post I actually agree with, because I'm not arguing for religions, far from it. Groups of people who want someone/thing else to take responsibility for their actions, decicion-making or simply for the things that happen 'to' them holds no interest for me. (I think some people align themselves with political parties for the same reasons... And read certain newspapers etc... I dont see an *awful* lot of difference)

I just have to disagree with you that there's always a 'rational' explanation for every experience, and that that's *all* there is to these things in every case.

And that's just my opinion. I still cant get my head around the concept of being so completely sure either way that one feels comfortable 'knowing' that all these things are either in the person's mind or skewed by their beliefs (old or new).

That's just the Libra in me, I dont like to judge anything until I'm completely sure

Why are those typos, spelling and grammar errors invisible to me until after I have posted?

I blame Glob The Worm Master of Mars.

Probably for the best. Who is this Glob thingy who takes all the blame for things you do wrong? Can I join his club?