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

"There is considerable evidence to indicate that, if there is a god, he/she has no effect at all on the material world. If he did, according to the predictions of faith, the virtuous should be saved and the evil damned. This is not the case. Numerous studies have tried to correlate religious beliefs and behaviour with rates of death, disease and injury and found just randomness. For example, there was a study that investigated whether praying for particular cancer sufferers had any effect on death rates. It didn't. In fact, highly religious communities appear to be *more* at risk from natural disasters and suchlike, although probably for economic reasons.

A study that finds 'no effect' is NOT the same as 'no evidence'. "

Good point(s). That is exactly what I am talking about when I say that you can apply logic to religion. Based on that, we can dismiss any religion that makes those kinds of claims as a fundamental doctrine as false.

Given that, I'm not sure how many religions we can dismiss, but my particular religion (a small subset of biblical Christianity) is still left standing. Particularly when you consider these references:

http://bible.cc/acts/10-34.htm
http://bible.cc/matthew/5-45.htm

If you interpret the sun rising and the rain falling in Matthew as representing God's blessings, that would indicate that miraculous healings and so forth would be expected to occur both in religious and non-religious people. I would expect that there would be no clear cut difference in medical statistics.

I'll have to give this more detailed consideration when I have more time - but for now:

1) It's just nonsensical. There simply isn't a god. But so what? That's a mere aesthetic judgement. What's wrong with silly things, after all?

2) It is a very poor basis for morality. Atheism is a 'necessary-but-not-sufficient' starting point for any sound ethical system.

You'll have to explain 'materialism' a bit more. since it means different things to different folk...but I'm certainly a materialist. Our thoughts, feelings and desires are pure biology. Nothing more.

ttfn. l8rs.

As for having a religious experience i've prayed to god before and never had anythinhg that could be construed as an answer. Now i don't believe in God, but if someone show's me physical proof then i shal reconsider my opinions.

"I know there's afew theists and Christians here at h2g2 and I'm wondering what is it that justifies that position? Also, if you are a theist what positive evidence do you have of the existence of God?"
Well, there's always the standard arguments:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity

"I mean it seems to me that since science cannot prove the existence of something hitherto undetected, agnosticism would be the way to go for many intellectual theists. (I, of course, am an atheist)"
Yes it can, and has done so quite often over the years.

"Also, what is the relationship between theism and materialism? Is it possible to be a materialistic theist?"
Some people think so. I don't see the logic of it.

"But seriously, what is it about atheists and atheism that you object to?"
I don't believe that either atheism or agnosticism are true. That is my objection.

"One problem I have with religion is how it states certain things should not be done, with the reason of 'just because'. Some of those things made sense at the time, but people still following it 2000 years later in a different place leads to problems."

Well, if something was true 2000 years ago then it must be true, period. It is in the nature of truth to be true.

Kalam - Answers nothing. What caused the first cause? Why call it 'god' when 'the universe' will do. 'Turtles all the way down'?

Irreducible complexity - simply contrary to the evidence from biology.

Saying "It's just nonsensical" isn't a valid logical argument, you need to show the logical contradiction that makes it nonsensical.

Atheism has proven to be a very poor basis for morality - Communism being a prime example.

Define materialism? Materialism is a philosophy that holds that the only thing that can be proven to exist is matter, and basically that therefore matter is all that exists. (Or, matter and energy, if you prefer)

so are you saying that ever aethist is immoral?

"Kalam - Answers nothing. What caused the first cause? Why call it 'god' when 'the universe' will do. 'Turtles all the way down'?"

The whole point of Kalam is that the initial cause could not have come from the universe, but had to come from outside it.

"Irreducible complexity - simply contrary to the evidence from biology."
I'd like to see that evidence, since Strobel's book (which I mentioned earlier) laid out the evidence FOR irreducible complexity.

"so are you saying that ever aethist is immoral?"
All I've said so far is that the philosophy of atheism is a poor basis for morality. But Biblical Christianity holds that every single person in the world is immoral, so I'd have to answer "Yes, I believe that" since atheists are people too.

Thanks for that. I however don't think that that is right. I think that i have morals and i don't believe in god.

"As for having a religious experience i've prayed to god before and never had anythinhg that could be construed as an answer. Now i don't believe in God, but if someone show's me physical proof then i shal reconsider my opinions."
What constitutes physical proof in your opinion?

Meeting god or something like that. Pehaps i used the wrong words, if someone could prove beyond any doubt that god exists then i would ahve to reconsider.

I´m sure for every atrocity you can show done by godless communists, someone can show you one done by christian nazis.

Also that silly answer you gave to my comment probably illustrates my point rather well. As for irreducible complexity, Dawkins has some good stuff on that.

what silly answer?

hmm, interesting.

NeoPathFinder - you've made a couple of posts so far with comments that do not equate with my understanding of atheism (nor that of atheists I know).
You've talked about tenets of atheism, you've talked about atheism as a basis for morality under communism.

Perhaps we should define here, what do you think the definition of atheism is? What are it's defining qualities and how do you think it affects a person so labelled?

a final thought and then I will politely unsubscribe:

it is a well documented statistic that in U.S. prisons there are far fewer atheists than one would expect based on their proportion of the non-prison U.S. population. It seems that, if criminality correlates at all with immorality, then atheists are as a group, measurably *more* moral than are people of faith.

I hope those who remain will enjoy the discussion.

I'm sure they will.

"I´m sure for every atrocity you can show done by godless communists, someone can show you one done by christian nazis."
So, how do you determine what constitutes a good basis for morality? Frankly, I don't think that's good criteria for determining what is true.

"Also that silly answer you gave to my comment probably illustrates my point rather well. As for irreducible complexity, Dawkins has some good stuff on that."
Can you give it to me in a nutshell? I remember Strobel's interviews mentioned him when talking about the issue but not exactly what his objection was all about.

I think a good basis for morality would be "What does the least harm to people?" rather than "Well, we have a book here that says this and this"

The nutshell version would be that what is referred to as irreducible complexity isn´t. That many of the examples of irreducible complexity in an animal, can be found in less complex forms in other animals.