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

I'd like to comment on Fathom's post (166, I believe...)

Teaching 'atheism' is a bit of a red herring. I think the original article was actually suggesting that belief systems that don't involve God ought to be taught alongside those that do. Humanism, for instance, is (as I mentioned earlier) a set of moral values which finds its source in the intrinsic worth of humans as humans, rather than a creator figure. My own view is that I think that there probably is a God (though not of the Christian or variety), but that it doesn't matter whether there is a God or not when thinking about how we ought to behave towards each other. It's important that the message gets out that there can be morality without God, and that atheism or agnosticism does not imply a commitment to wholesale relativism as often supposed.

I think the state should be neutral between different belief systems, and that schools should teach something about all of the major belief systems, and encourage discussion about ethical issues. But being neutral between competing belief systems does not mean being anti-religion. What worries me slightly about some of the more strident atheists is that these kinds of views could lead to intolerance of others. I'm not saying that people's metaphysical views ought to be beyond criticism or satire, but I think that this can go beyond fair criticism. It's one thing saying that there are some absurdities in Christianity, but it's quite another to say that all Christians are idiots / children / irrational / etc. I'm not putting these words into the mouths of anyone in this thread, but I think it's a bad sign if atheists become as intolerant as religious fundamentalists.

After all, we don't really *choose* what we believe....

" we don't really *choose* what we believe..."



Speak for yourself.

Surely our beliefs are one of our most fundamental choices. We can't choose our parents, our race, our standard of education, our level of intelligence or country or language of origin - but what we BELIEVE? The contents of our own minds is one freedom that nobody can take away from us. The fact that so many people so depressingly fail to exercise their choice does not make that choice any less real.

hi Otto,

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I can't really go along with that. I was brought up (so to speak) as an RC. That was the belief chosen for me. I ended up rejecting it and eventually replacing it with something I am really crap at describing so I won't try again.

But perhaps what you meant by us not choosing is that our beliefs are innate? Mind you, I can't go along with that either.

I do think sometimes that people don't choose their beliefs when they simply decide to go along with the first belief they were taught and never question it or have interest in other options. But that is just spiritual laziness I think, not anything to do with being unable to choose.

az

I don't know, I mean I could choose to go to church, read the Bible every night, strive to follow the 10 commandments and all that, but, as Justin will be happy to tell you, that wouldn't make me a Christian. I don't think I could ever choose to be a Christian, because I do not believe in God. I do not choose not to believe in God, I just don't, because it makes no sense to me.

Although having said that, I think it is possible to effectively deceive yourself up to a point, but probably not if you know yourself well enough to realise that's a choice.

I'm not saying that belief is neccesarily pre-determined, I'm saying that beliefs are not things that can be changed at will. I believe that it's raining. I can't choose to believe that it isn't.

Member, could you choose to believe in God if you wanted to? I think it's possible to adopt the trappings and mannerisms of belief, but I don't think it's possible to change beliefs at will. Beliefs change only in response to evidence and the way that that evidence is evaluated. To change what you believe, you have to change your apparateus for understanding the world and the people around you. People do have the choice to be more or less critical about their perception-deduction faculties, though. But some types of belief (and I include some atheists in this category) belief an ideology which explicitly rules out challenging the method of comprehending the world.

I believe certain things about other people's attitude towards me, and perhaps I have *some* choice about how I interpret the evidence, depending on how I'm feeling about them and about myself. However, I can't *decide* to believe that x holds me in high esteem or that y hates me unless the evidence bears out those conclusions. I could, perhaps, choose to be suspicious of y and intepret her actions negatively, but what I believe about what she thinks about me is not something that I choose. How I *respond* is a choice.

Similarly with religious belief. When we're young, we don't really know how to select the relevant evidence and interpret it. As people get older, they learn those skills and start to see things differently. What people see as the relevant evidence changes over time, as does their response to it. It's possible to try to take yourself in one direction or another, but I don't think that it's possible for someone with a strong religious faith, who feels God's presence in her life, to choose not to believe in God. Similarly, I don't think that atheists could choose to believe in God even if they wanted to.

I've never said anything that produced that many smileys before

"There will not be any surprises for the Lord's people a moment after death; they already know and walk with Him that they meet face to face. We don't have a religion, but that Person who is the judge of all the Earth."

Still plugging Constantine's made-up watered-down version of "Christianity", Justin? The Empire it served is long-dead, you know. Incidentally, the God of the Christians isn't a "person" and I'm sure it's blasphemous to describe him as such. You bad boy.

A church going friend of mine said that she chose to believe in God - not that she saw any evidence for or against, merely opted for a certain faith.
I think it is a question of faith in the unknown rather than belief of a fact, although some people will assert that they perceive evidence, or can rationalise their views.

I'm a fairly committed agnostic. I won't commit to atheism because nobody has shown me any proof that there is no "god". I certainly don't have time for organised religions, cranks (sorry, Justin) telling me that an all-knowing all-powerful supernatural entity will only save me if I believe something silly like Jesus is my personal saviour (although this aspect of Christianity is a Protestant invention to excuse them from actually having to behave in a Christian manner) or that Mohammed was God's prophet or any of the other miriad nonsenses we can pick and choose from these days. Religious fundamentalism is anti-human, anti-freedom and evil, even small scale religious beliefs tend to cloud people's judgement and make them believe that events are "guided" or can be "controlled" which can lead to ridiculous paranoia or an absurd faith in the power of the supernatural.

I believe very fundamentally in free-choice. I hate the enforced atheism that was practiced by the communist countries. Genuinely spiritual people (though prone to the judgement clouding I mentioned) tend to shun fundamentalism which tends to afflict those who see God as their personal weapon to harm and hurt those they hate.

Otto, what you're describing relies on an *evidential* assessment of how you perceive the world. Some people rely on faith. He who must not be fed, for one. Evidence is simply *irrelevant* to his world view.

Didn't DNA come up with an argument that proved the existence of God, who then disappeared in a cloud of logic as his existence relied on faith? (I'm sure someone can quote the test here - don't have a copy of the book to hand at the mo.)

By "test" I mean "text", obviously. Although, that said, "test" seems strangely appropriate.

Zagreb,

I am not sure what you mean, as I have never followed any religion based on what Constantine did, that is the Catholic religion, and it is nothing to do with me. No one I know does as you suggest either. Are you confusing me with someone else?

As for God being a Person, the Bible very clearly shows that that is just exactly what He is, and wants to be seen as. Are you confusing the term 'Person' with 'Human'? I think I know a bit more about this than you do so you are not really in a place to scold me, now are you...

*DO NOT FEED THE TROLL*

Aww don't be such a meanie .

Justin, we love you really. Here, have a Yule log .

Justin,

On another thread you claimed to believe that the Bible is the word of God and the Truth. This is a Catholic invention, created by Constantine. The Christian religion that directly followed Jesus Christ had no Bible, nor did Christ specifically mention or create a Holy Book in the manner of, for example, Mohammed's Koran. So, if you believe the Bible is God's word then you are accepting the Catholic version of Christianity, offshoot or not.

Person is human. God (and, to an agnostic like myself, if there is a god then "he" is not the god of any specific religion, history and plain logic teaches us that that is a product of human vanity) is not human in any sense of the word, he is all-knowing, all-seeing and almost certainly not interesting in guiding our individual lives or only letting into heaven people who were born into a society were they are lucky enough to be indoctrinated into a specific religion. If man can see the flaws in that then it is impossible a god could not.

"I'm saying that beliefs are not things that can be changed at will. I believe that it's raining. I can't choose to believe that it isn't."

You can if it's not raining! I change my beliefs at least three times a day.


Alji

Zagreb:

"I won't commit to atheism because nobody has shown me any proof that there is no "god"."

What evidence would you accept as proof of the non-existence of god?

I'm sure, given that you've apparently thought about this, that you can give me a short description of what evidence would convince you that god does not exist - something specific, measureable, repeatable and unmistakeable. I look forward to your reply, and hope I can provide the proof you're looking for, or at least tell you who can.

In return, here's my criteria for believing god DOES exist - a miracle. It doesn't need to be big, just a straightforward defiance of the laws of physics, demonstrated for a critical audience of scientists and professional magicians. Something simple would suffice - say, stopping or reversing the flow of time within a reasonable volume of space for a few minutes, simultaneous telepathic communication with every human on earth in their own language telling them he exists, a personal appearance in the sky over every capital city in the world for an hour in the shape of a burning sword ten miles high, something tiny and trivial like that - the sort of thing any omnipotent being should be capable of even with a really bad hangover. One miracle like that, and you've got - I'll believe.

In the meantime, I look forward to your description of precisely how you expect anyone to prove he does NOT exist.

Thanks.

Member, your standards of proof for the existence of god are rather low. I expect Zagreb's would be higher, and similarly his standards for a proof of the non-existence of god.

I'd just like to voice support for Otto's comment:

"... it doesn't matter whether there is a God or not when thinking about how we ought to behave towards each other. It's important that the message gets out that there can be morality without God, and that atheism or agnosticism does not imply a commitment to wholesale relativism as often supposed."

I think this would make a good framework for teaching religion, atheism, humanism, morality, ethics, etc. in school. In line with my former comment about arts, I would teach two things related to this discussion. One would be morality and ethics starting from this framework, and the second would be in art, literature, music and so forth where understanding religion is a prerequisite for understanding cultures. (Incidentally, I think a good case could probably be made that understanding religion is helpful in understanding the development of science as well, but that's a side issue.)

"Otto, what you're describing relies on an *evidential* assessment of how you perceive the world. Some people rely on faith. He who must not be fed, for one. Evidence is simply *irrelevant* to his world view."

That's my point. I think people do rely on evidence (or, better, the evidence *as they percieve it*) in forming their beliefs, which is why I don't think that people can choose their beliefs. Though I accept that they can influence them over time.

I wonder if people with very strong or extreme religious views see the world in a very different way to atheists? The phenomenology might be very different. Some religious people sense God's presence, sometimes they ask for guidance, and sometimes they feel that they can 'hear' or 'feel' what God wants them to do. An atheist might call similar processes 'sleeping on a problem' or 'the voice of their conscience'. I can't say for sure (never having a very strong specific religious belief as an adult), but I wonder if the world and the self and others feel very different to a strong theist than an atheist. It would certainly explain a lot.

It would be irrational to have a very strong religious belief in a narrow and tightly defined ideology (rather than a more general sense that there is a God, and he's a good guy) if you had the same perception-analysis setup as an atheist. I'm not so sure that it would be irrational if you saw the world in a certain way, and interpreted external (the world) and internal (dreams, conscience, internal dialogue, sudden inspiration, original thoughts etc) phenomena in a religious way. e.g is a sudden thought or new idea that you get apropos of nothing a subtle suggestion from God, or a 'brainwave'. Are bad things that happen the result of human greed and stupidity, or the work of the devil's subtle and malign influence? To the believer, these explanations of the phenomena are real for them, in the same way that secular explations are real for others.

Although I talk of evidence, it's only evidence for the self, and not evidence that can be communicated easily or which could be used to convice others who simply don't see the world in the same way.

That's enough for now.