Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

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Ormond
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

Post by Ormond »

Thing is, the Catholics cornered the market. For some time it was actually not easy for secular helpers to even gain employment in the sector.
Cornered the charity market?? Oh my, too silly, good for a laugh, thanks. :lol:
I think of religion's benefits as diminishing returns as they approach the end of its useful life. The developed world is expected to be almost entirely secular in around two hundred years.
This is the same old thing every ideology always says. "We are on the move, ascendant, soon everyone will realize we were right all along, and then the utopia will come etc etc." Except that it never happens. Atheist communists used every available method to try to stamp out religion in Russia and China, and look what happened. Communism lasted mere decades, and religion is now once again blooming in those countries, just as it has for endless centuries.
It is the underprivileged who will retain, and benefit from, religion. When life is hard enough, hope that a better one awaits in the afterlife might be all that keeps a person going.
America is one of the richest countries in the world, and Christian churches are on every third corner in every city across the nation. Religion typically addresses the fundamental human condition, which has little to do with one's bank account.
I don't see the science community as the problem at all.
I can agree, they are just skillfully serving a very widely held culture wide assumption that "more is better" when it comes to knowledge. That assumption was very true for very long, but does not take in to account the revolutionary nature of the knowledge explosion now underway. The times have changed, but we have not.

If one challenges that dangerously outdated assumption, you will quickly be labeled a Luddite. But it is really those who insist on thinking the same old way about knowledge as we have thought about it for thousands of years who are clinging to the past. They are unable to adapt to the new environment being created by the knowledge explosion, and we are all likely going to pay a dear price for it.
The issue is conservative politicians and media moguls, mostly theists, and some with significant vested in fossil fuels, who are deriding and undermining scientists' warnings. Some of them are no doubt welcoming the apocalypse and the Rapture because then all wrongdoers will be punished and the righteous (ie. them and theirs) will be rewarded with eternal life.
Ha, ha, yes, I agree, theists are the cause of all problems everywhere at all times. Oh, and atheists are universally utterly blameless in every case, period! :lol:
Scientists have been warning about sustainability since the 70s, at least.
And yet they keep developing new knowledge at an ever faster rate, a process which is simply not sustainable. Human beings can only successfully manage so much power, which means the knowledge explosion is a process of racing towards that moment when we find out where the limits of our ability are. The science clergy doesn't get this, because to face it would be to undermine their own cultural power.
I think what we can take from spirituality - which I see as largely separate, and often antithetical to, organised religion - is valuing of inner experiences.
I think you are far too liberal with your urge to label all of organized religion as being bad. Seems like an emotional bias to me. It's too big an enterprise to define so simplistically. That said, I'm not really disputing your point above.

Here's how it works though. At the moment we try to explain experiences we think of as "spiritual", at the moment we reach out to others who hold similar explanations, the seed of organized religion sprouts a few new green leaves above the ground.

If we wish to avoid organized religion at all costs, then these experiences are best kept private and unexplained, even to ourselves. Some mystics have walked this path, but because it is a quiet private path free of explanations, they will not influence the larger culture. Thus, those who organize efforts to sell their explanations will come to dominate the culture.

Point being, to the degree that you insist that "spiritual" experiences not become organized religions, you are surrendering the field to those you most oppose. The Catholics have dominated western civilization because they are willing to explain, organize and sell. If you decline to compete, they win.

You can of course continue to sell the atheist dogmas. But that will persuade only your fellow atheists, who are already persuaded. Preaching to the choir.

You'll never win over the religious by repeatedly telling them that what they've been doing for thousands of years is engaging in ignorant superstitions. It's entirely illogical for atheist ideologues to cling to such an ineffective strategy. And that's a problem if what you are selling is logic.
Ormond wrote:This is true, but again, you're doing the same old thing of ignoring atheist crimes
Could you name one please? Preferably more.
Nope, nope and nope. I've learned that having that conversation with those who can't see the history of atheist crimes for themselves is entirely pointless. You're on your own here, see it or not, up to you. If you wish to declare victory, so be it, no complaints.
Civilisation is going to collapse because of science?
Yes. To put it more precisely, it's going to collapse because we all cling to an outdated "more is better" relationship with knowledge, which the science community skillfully serves.
It seems to me that you are blaming scientists for the problems they are working so hard to overcome.
It is science which is empowering humanity to do more of the stupid things we've always done, but now on an existential scale. The easiest example is warfare. We've always had wars, but they were local affairs and not a threat to global civilization. And then the physics fellows decided they would "help" and now war is a threat to global civilization.

Please don't get stuck in arguing the blame game. I'm not interested in blaming scientists or making them the bad guys. They are just doing what we hire them to do.

The threat arises from bad philosophy. The entire culture (not just scientists) is clinging to an outdated simplistic "more is better" relationship with knowledge that was once true, instead of adapting to the new environment that's been created by that assumption. The world we inhabit is changing radically, and we are not. Failure to adapt to new environments typically results in species extinction, whatever the species is.
I suggest that medicine - devised via the scientific method - will help to cure infants from parasites.
That wasn't the question. How will Higgs Boson research kill parasites, or provide any other medical benefit? Point being, we are wasting huge resources on research that provides no benefit to human beings. We are largely unwilling to be discriminating, insisting all knowledge is good no matter what.
A serious problem for the scientific community is lack of understanding by laypersons of the usefulness and significance of "blue sky" research.
We can't afford it anymore. We have very pressing existential problems which will kill us soon if we don't get our act together, thus ending all research for ever. That lack of understanding lies with those who think we can keep on doing the same old thing forever, with those who ignore the reality of where knowledge development has brought us. You think you're arguing for the future, but really you are arguing for the past, for continuing to think and do the same old things, blindly ignoring that today is no longer the past.
Please provide the "atheist" crimes. I take it that any crime committed by a non-believer is considered an atheist crime?
Apologies, but you are not qualified to have that conversation. Happy to engage you again should that change.

-- Updated May 26th, 2016, 9:22 am to add the following --
Somebody wrote:. While the discovery of the Higgs may not have any discernible applications just yet, they might just be one "Eureka!" away.
More mindless self serving rationalizations from the science clergy.

What he didn't say is that we had the option to spend that money on research which we know for a fact would benefit us. What he didn't say is that we didn't need to wonder if maybe someday we will receive a benefit for the billions spent. Duh!!!

See Greta? The words you quoted are just nonsense, but you suck them in willingly and without question because they come from the science clergy, the new unquestioned holy authorities of modern culture.

That lack of questioning is the same relationship we had with Catholic clerics in the 8th century. You think you've transcended all that, but really you've just jumped from unquestioning worship of one authority to unquestioning worship of another authority.

This is what I'm bellowing against. Not science or scientists, but our unthinking unquestioning relationship with them.

Scientists typically have the best of intentions and pursue their goals with great skill. But they don't see where they are leading us. And if we worship their authority without questioning, then we won't see what's coming either. And if nobody sees the coming catastrophe, it's going to happen for sure.
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Steve3007
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

Post by Steve3007 »

Ormond:
The threat arises from bad philosophy. The entire culture (not just scientists) is clinging to an outdated simplistic "more is better" relationship with knowledge that was once true, instead of adapting to the new environment that's been created by that assumption. The world we inhabit is changing radically, and we are not. Failure to adapt to new environments typically results in species extinction, whatever the species is.
I think it would be helpful to see how getting away from a "more is better" relationship with knowledge might help to prevent us from destroying ourselves by examining something concrete and specific: The end of the Second World War, the Manhattan Project and the beginning of the nuclear arms race.

(I'm not a great scholar of history so please be understanding and, if possible, correct me if I get things wrong here.)

The discovery, via the iconic equation E = mc2, that small amounts of mass can be converted to vast amounts of energy laid the groundwork. The geopolitical situation leading up to 1945 meant that various politicians saw it as essential to develop an A bomb before the other side did. So they employed some scientists to do it. After much thoughtful sucking on pipes they did it. Head scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer said: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. Oh well, it's steady work." (I'm paraphrasing.) The nuclear arms race between "The West" and the Soviet Union then rapidly accelerated with the invention of the H Bomb, to the point where 1950s american school kids had to learn little songs taught to them by turtles to protect themselves against the nuclear blast. In the 1980's a teenage Steve3007 joined CND, and went on protest marches (mostly because they meant cheap bus travel to London. A quick protest in Trafalgar Square, culminating in a very exciting and rebellious mass lie-down to simulate being dead after a nuclear attack, followed by some shopping and a look round a museum.)

What I'd like to examine is how a change in our "more is better" attitude to knowledge might have altered that history.
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

Post by Sy Borg »

Ormond, when I write a post on a topic and the other declines to speak on the topic and instead largely just writes about me, then I know it's close to game over.

If you don't understand how charities compete for work and subsidies, then you know nothing about the welfare sector and its history and not qualified to comment.

You have made it clear that you do not much value knowledge, science or scientists, instead giving primacy to emotion and sensations. The result is typical conspiracy theorist-style shouting of Chicken Little warnings about the evils and dangers of science and technology, while giving religious conservatives and corrupt businesspeople a relatively free pass.

You also ignore the unrepresentative proportions of theists in government. It is a strategic network. Politics is perhaps the hardest of jobs and political theists have banded together to support and help each other and, thus, they tend to be the ones that survive in profession. You may think it fine to be lead by superstitious people subscribing to millennia-old morality but I see it as immaturity to transcend:

* Theist politicians are most responsible for lack of assisted suicide laws, with people forced to endure end-of-life torture due to the "sanctity of life". This affects almost everyone, not only in practice but in most of the populace living with that fear hanging over their heads - "Will I or my loved ones have to endure this pointless agonising ritual?".

* Women and abortion doctors being attacked, even bombed. Women deliberately psychologically tortured by extremist theists as "punishment"

* Gays not permitted to marry, plus the long term influence of religious homophobia that has resulted in much bullying and many bashings

* Interference with scientific research due to superstition

* Interference with education due to superstitious evolution denial

* Atheists discriminated against as regards seeking presidency of the US

* A theist US president announced before embarking on the worst war crime since Hitler - the unwarranted invasion of Iraq - that it was God's will that this be done.

* Catholic Church did not permit Africans to use condoms for decades, resulting in massive suffering and loss of life

* Sexual abuse of children by clergy trusted to care for them

* Bashing and psychological abuse of children by trusted to care for them (my mother, who remained a devout Catholic had some tales to tell about that)

That's just off the top of my head, without needing to consult Google for longer and more thorough lists. These are the problems of this old, stale dying theism that remains stuck to us like a vestigial tail that doesn't drop off.

I pointed out that religion has its use in poor countries because, for those with terrible lives a belief in something better is all that keeps them going. You missed the point in replying:
America is one of the richest countries in the world, and Christian churches are on every third corner in every city across the nation. Religion typically addresses the fundamental human condition, which has little to do with one's bank account.
This religiosity is exactly the US's problem. People are retreating into what is effectively emotional masturbation to comfort themselves from an increasingly difficult reality. Soft-minded people, unacquainted with disciplined, analytical thought are easily manipulated by media moguls and politicians. So you have an army of Americans cheering for candidates who openly represent businesses and billionaires over the little people. To care for the little people is considered "socialist", a bogey word for the religious right.

Bear in mind that many of these politicians literally believe the Bible, so they believe in the apocalypse and the upcoming Rapture. Do you think they will be interested in scientists' environmental concerns?

Re: sustainability. You blame scientific progress, which is backwards. The problems are:

* not enough scientific advancement

* not enough development of scientific advances due to denialist lobbying

* excessive populations

* excessive resource use by the super-rich, which could be described as "gorging"

Sure, organised religion is not all bad, but it has increasingly been a liability due to political interference in people's lives - where it is none of the church's business. For instance, churches might wish to ban euthanasia or homosexuality within their own ranks but they have no right to interfere with secular people's lives the way they have done.
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Ormond
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

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Greta wrote:Ormond, when I write a post on a topic and the other declines to speak on the topic and instead largely just writes about me, then I know it's close to game over.
I've responded to you extensively and in great detail.
If you don't understand how charities compete for work and subsidies, then you know nothing about the welfare sector and its history and not qualified to comment.
You're filling the air with a lot of noise to avoid having to share with us which atheist charities can compete with Catholic Charities. This is normal for ideologists, where the primary concern is winning, not advancing understanding.
You have made it clear that you do not much value knowledge, science or scientists, instead giving primacy to emotion and sensations.
You're making it clear you're giving up on our conversation by deliberating misquoting my points. It seems you wish to conclude our exchange, and it seems that's agreeable with me. Thanks for what we were able to accomplish together, hopefully some readers found it useful.

-- Updated May 26th, 2016, 8:32 pm to add the following --

Hi Steve,
I think it would be helpful to see how getting away from a "more is better" relationship with knowledge might help to prevent us from destroying ourselves...
The basic equation is pretty simple. More knowledge equals more power, at an ever accelerating rate. Sooner or later we acquire existential scale powers that we can't handle. Game over.

The "more is better" relationship with knowledge assumes that human beings have an infinite ability to successfully manage unlimited power. There is little in human history to suggest that is true. We are not gods after all.
What I'd like to examine is how a change in our "more is better" attitude to knowledge might have altered that history.
Well, that history brought us to the place where we are now, capable of destroying human civilization in a single day. Avoiding such an outcome is dependent on the great powers never again coming in to all out conflict. Existential scale power removes all room for error, one bad day is enough to bring the house down.

If the physics folks had stuck to sucking on their pipes, we still would have defeated the Nazis and Japanese. Soviet armies might have rolled through all of Europe, but the Soviet Union still would have collapsed because it's internal logic was unsustainable.

We used to worship the Judaeo-Christian God. Now we worship ourselves. The later will prove to be far more dangerous, imho.
If the things we want to hear could take us where we want to go, we'd already be there.
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

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Orm, there is no such thing as an "atheist charity". Secular charities include people of all faiths, or lack. I lived with welfare work managers for years and they were always struggling trying to get funding for their secular charity while the religious charities were richly funded.

You feel misrepresented by me in regard to your views about science, but your posts give the impression that you mostly blame science for environmental problems. Okay, granted. I over-reduced your stances. Are you able to admit that you have spent most of this debate trying to unfairly and inappropriately make me look like a reflexive and unthinking atheist?

To revisit the point I did not properly address:
I don't see the science community as the problem at all.
Ormond wrote:I can agree, they are just skillfully serving a very widely held culture wide assumption that "more is better" when it comes to knowledge. That assumption was very true for very long, but does not take in to account the revolutionary nature of the knowledge explosion now underway. The times have changed, but we have not.

If one challenges that dangerously outdated assumption, you will quickly be labeled a Luddite. But it is really those who insist on thinking the same old way about knowledge as we have thought about it for thousands of years who are clinging to the past. They are unable to adapt to the new environment being created by the knowledge explosion, and we are all likely going to pay a dear price for it.
Here you attribute an aim to science that simply does not exist. The simple fact is that if a nation cuts funding to research programs because "science is moving too quickly" then they will be out-competed by nations that continue to learn and grow. So each nation is forced to push forward at maximum speed to keep up.

Yes, this mad rush forward - exponential growth without having a chance to take stock - is a problem for ordinary people but it is inevitable. This is how nature works and we are part of nature, not above it. All that is happening is entirely natural, just part of the Earth's ongoing development. We have no idea where it will lead.

I am for environmentalism and humanism (and a frequent donator), to slow the processes as much as possible. At the forefront of environmental movements are scientists. It's encouraging that recently some religions have been increasingly loosening their "humans as divine" notions and are inching towards environmental advocacy. So we have scientists and moderate/progressive clergy joining forces against the environmental destruction caused by powerful multinationals empowered by conservative politicians - who it should be said are mostly highly religious.

So, yes, there is growth and development in the churches but they had better start modernising quick smart or they will be demolished by the knowledge explosion. Changing their stances on euthanasia, abortion, sex, gender and sexuality would be a good start. Maybe then they might start paying due attention to spirituality instead of obsessing over people private parts?
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

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ThamiorTheThinker wrote:I'm not going to be presenting any formal arguments, so, the Philosopher's Lounge is the best place to post these thoughts.

I've been wondering for months now why many think that there is some ultimate metaphysical truth that must reside on one side of the "God" debate. It seems to me people are wasting their time debating whether or not the Judaeo-Christian God exists. i think the Christian doctrine has been thoroughly defeated, but theologians keep coming back to revise the definition of God in order to make it seem as though it is an existent being outside of spacetime. It's as though they believe it's impossible for there to be any other explanation than "God" where the universe and human lives are concerned. That's just one of literally infinite possibilities.

So, I must ask: Why the obsession with the debate over God's existence? Why isn't the public as a whole focused on exploring other possibilities? Why does the debate over the big questions we have about existence always end in "God"? Whats special about this single explanation of the universe and its meaning, purpose or origin?
In Philosophy the issues of First Cause, Prime Mover, Purposeful Designer, and Artistic Artificer lend philosophical credence to the Philosophy God. At least this is what Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, and Leibniz have concluded logically.

You are free to disagree with them if you like. It is a free country in the USA and also in many other Western nations also a free land. Scratch N.Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, and a few more North African countries though.

Moving on then to the 12 major religions in the world, any one of them could be the embodiment of the Philosophy God while the rest are not. Until you meet the God Himself/Herself/Itself/Themselves, you are really in no Empirical position to say either way.

So you should stop saying, in my opinion.

Lay out both sides of the argument and leave things at that.

-- Updated May 27th, 2016, 3:38 am to add the following --
ThamiorTheThinker wrote:
LuckyR wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


Quite simple really. The masses don't actually ponder these deep ideas. They self-identify as "religious" because of a couple of reasons: tradition is a big one, a feeling of superiority is a second big one, maybe the biggest one. A related but germain topic is that if one's totallity involved religion, which is common, then one doesn't consider non-religious options, so a majority of the possibilities aren't even on that person's radar screen.
Hmmm... Interesting points, but this conversation isn't about religion generally. I'm referring specifically to the concept of a monothesistic, personal God - God as the Judaeo-Christian religions imagine it.

-- Updated May 20th, 2016, 1:05 am to add the following --
Ormond wrote:Well...

Why are you "obsessing" over the Judeo-Christian God?

You're doing the same thing as everybody else, bringing the subject up and arguing a position of fantasy knowing and fantasy superiority for the billionth time.

You already have full intimate possession of a mind doing this thing you are asking about. Why not start your investigation there?
Fair enough, but redirecting the point and turning it against me isn't what I'm expecting.
Don't forget that early Christianity before Nicaea was not exactly monotheistic.

There were 3 Gods -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It was the Nicene Council in 325 AD and the Nicene Creed which rolls them all up into One God like ancient Judaism into a Trinity under an Athanasian Creed.

A lot of people don't realize this. You need to read Eusebius' book "History Of The Church" to find out what happened at the council. He was there. So was Constantine. So was Augustine the famous philosopher of that time as well. Both Augustine and Eusebius were bishops from different locations.
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Ormond
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

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Greta wrote:Orm, there is no such thing as an "atheist charity".
That's my point too. Religion provides an organizing framework which can bring people together to do good work (and bad work) as a group. Atheism appears not to have this power, at least not yet. That's why Catholic Charities can dominate the charity landscape, they have their act together, whereas atheists don't.

There's no reason why groups of ardent atheists couldn't organize explicitly atheist charities to compete with religious charities. That would be a constructive competition. If such atheist charities could out perform religious charities that would demonstrate that atheism/reason/science has a superior organizing power to do good work, and that would be quite impressive and persuasive.

But atheist ideologues appear to have no interest in proving their claims, as they seem content to just stand on their soap boxes and complain about what other people are doing.
You feel misrepresented by me in regard to your views about science, but your posts give the impression that you mostly blame science for environmental problems. Okay, granted. I over-reduced your stances.
Fair enough, I can do that too. No problem.
Are you able to admit that you have spent most of this debate trying to unfairly and inappropriately make me look like a reflexive and unthinking atheist?
I'm sorry, but that is what you are, an atheist ideologue. I apologize if you are not enjoying this encounter with that reality. You continually insist on making simplistic sweeping atheist ideologue points such as religion=bad. You appear to have no interest in carefully sorting through this huge phenomena we call religion and trying to separate the useful from the dangerous.

You're entirely entitled to have and share that point of view. I'm just pointing out that it is ideology, not reason. Ideology is not a crime, it's just not reason that's all. My point is that this would seem to be a rather large problem for any person or group who proclaims their perspective derives it's value from reason, a method they assert to be superior to something else.

All I'm really doing in all my posts on atheism is calling upon atheists to be loyal to their own chosen methodology. I'm not interested in selling atheists religion. I'm trying to sell them reason, a perfectly valid methodology for pursuing such topics, if one actually uses it.
Here you attribute an aim to science that simply does not exist. The simple fact is that if a nation cuts funding to research programs because "science is moving too quickly" then they will be out-competed by nations that continue to learn and grow. So each nation is forced to push forward at maximum speed to keep up.
Here's how this conversation always works. Members will spend about one minute contemplating my challenge to the "more is better" paradigm, find they are unable to solve all the problems associated with such a paradigm shift, and then declare that because they can't solve the problem in one minute it can't be solved. Not just you, not just this forum, forums full of real working scientists too, same thing. I label this extreme intellectual laziness.

The reason this topic may be relevant in a thread about the Judaeo-Christian God is that the secular relationship with knowledge and science bears a striking resemblance to the fundamentalist religious relationship with god concepts. The secular relationship with knowledge is faith based, unquestioning, dogmatic, rigid, authority worshiping. I'm not attacking science, I'm challenging our "religious-like" relationship with science and knowledge, for that is where the danger lies.
Yes, this mad rush forward - exponential growth without having a chance to take stock - is a problem for ordinary people but it is inevitable.
It's only inevitable if we stick our heads in the sand and insist it is inevitable. As example, we have a near global agreement to end atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. We didn't say, "atmospheric testing is inevitable, there's nothing anybody can do about it."
At the forefront of environmental movements are scientists.
The process of uncontrolled knowledge development is the primary threat to the environment, and it is science which is leading that movement. Science taught us how to pull oil out of the ground and put it in the atmosphere, giving us global warming. Science showed us how to unlock the power of the atom, giving us the ability to end global civilization in a single day.

Religion didn't do these things, religion didn't bring us these existential threats, science did.

Science didn't do these things because it is evil. It did it because it doesn't really grasp the revolutionary nature of the knowledge explosion. We are still using thinking that was appropriate in the era when knowledge development was linear in nature, and we are trying to apply that same "more is better" thinking to the new era where knowledge development is exponential in nature.

That is, we are failing to adapt. And the price tag for failing to adapt is often extinction.

In climate science they have the concept of a "tipping point" where climate change begins feeding back upon itself, which escalates climate change from a linear phenomena to an exponential phenomena.

My point is that it is knowledge which is racing towards a tipping point, and climate change is just a symptom of that movement.

-- Updated May 27th, 2016, 8:38 am to add the following --
Greta wrote:For instance, churches might wish to ban euthanasia or homosexuality within their own ranks but they have no right to interfere with secular people's lives the way they have done.
This might help us clarify your stance. I totally agree on euthanasia and homosexuality, so that's not a problem.

But are you saying religious people don't have a right to participate in the political process on any issues where you disagree with them? That would be a big problem for me.

Instead of saying "they have no right" perhaps you might edit that to "they are wrong, and you will vote against their proposals"?
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

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Ormond wrote:I'm sorry, but that is what you are, an atheist ideologue.
I'm out. You are apparently unable to comprehend the simple English of my forum signature.

I will reserve my efforts for those willing to use reason rather than bravado and gamesmanship. Life's too short.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

Post by Ormond »

Greta wrote:I'm out. You are apparently unable to comprehend the simple English of my forum signature.
Re-read the thread, and count how many times you have essentially made the simplistic dogmatic point, religion=bad. There's little to no nuance in your perspective on an ancient enterprise currently involving billions of people. You just label the entire huge thing as "religion" and then apply the formula "religion=bad".

You are entitled to label your position however you wish, but for me, when people chant the "religion=bad" formula in post after post after post I call them atheist ideologues.

Apparently you are ashamed of being an atheist ideologue, and thus take the label as an insult. But you need not. You have every right to be one. My point is only that you aren't entitled to call such a simplistic one sided perspective reason, for it is not, it's ideology.

There is a very real difference between reason and ideology.

Reason is as demanding a task master as faith is. You don't get to decide what conclusion you want to end up at. You have to surrender to the process and let it take you where it will, just like with faith.

Ideology is not about reason, understanding or truth, it's about winning, victory, triumph, superiority.

This is a philosophy forum, so coming to better understand the nature of reason seems an appropriate exercise.
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

Post by Sy Borg »

O, I see that logical thought continues to elude you, not that you seem interested in the effort. My position - that religion had its uses but is increasingly becoming a liability - has nuance, but you are too caught up with competitive gaming of the debate with and resorting to false labelling and name calling. Amusingly, you seem to consider this weak tactic a telling blow of sorts.

Further, you accuse me of lack of nuance due entirely to your own comprehension deficits. What a waste of time and effort.
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

Post by Ormond »

Greta wrote:O, I see that logical thought continues to elude you,
Note how you make that claim, without actually challenging anything I said above. That's ideology at work, winning is everything.
My position - that religion had its uses
That position is atheist ideology. Religion HAD it's uses you say, as if the billions of people CURRENTLY involved in religion are all wasting their time. There's nothing at all nuanced about labeling billions of people you've never met as all being wrong.
but you are too caught up with competitive gaming of the debate with and resorting to false labelling and name calling.
What's happening is that you're watching with dismay as a cherished self flattering personal identity built upon illusion, distortion and fantasy superiority is systematically dismantled by reason in public.

Although you are quite articulate, you don't have the chops to defend atheist ideology. But you shouldn't feel bad about that, because nobody does. It's an indefensible position. You've backed a bad horse, that's all, it's a very common and very understandable phenomena.
What a waste of time and effort.
So stop wasting, I don't object. I'm an acquired taste that few acquire, I get that. There are LOTS of threads here, and you're in most of them. :lol: You'll be fine.
If the things we want to hear could take us where we want to go, we'd already be there.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

Post by Sy Borg »

My position - that religion had its uses
Ormond wrote:That position is atheist ideology. Religion HAD it's uses you say, as if the billions of people CURRENTLY involved in religion are all wasting their time. There's nothing at all nuanced about labeling billions of people you've never met as all being wrong.
All statistics on religiosity and church attendance point to a steady decline of religiosity. This is what I base my "ideology" on.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
YIOSTHEOY
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

Post by YIOSTHEOY »

Greta wrote:
My position - that religion had its uses
Ormond wrote:That position is atheist ideology. Religion HAD it's uses you say, as if the billions of people CURRENTLY involved in religion are all wasting their time. There's nothing at all nuanced about labeling billions of people you've never met as all being wrong.
All statistics on religiosity and church attendance point to a steady decline of religiosity. This is what I base my "ideology" on.
Statistics then ... you seem to be basing your philosophy on statistics. Is that right?

What if the stats are bad though? How would that affect your philosophy of religion?

And do you separate the Philosophy God of Aristotle and others from the Religion God of the various religions?
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Sy Borg
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Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

Post by Sy Borg »

YIOSTHEOY wrote:
Greta wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


(Nested quote removed.)

All statistics on religiosity and church attendance point to a steady decline of religiosity. This is what I base my "ideology" on.
Statistics then ... you seem to be basing your philosophy on statistics. Is that right?

What if the stats are bad though? How would that affect your philosophy of religion?

And do you separate the Philosophy God of Aristotle and others from the Religion God of the various religions?
I'm not sure I "base any philosophy" on stats, or what that even means. Still, I take data more seriously than unsupported opinions, depending on whose opinion it is. Stats were a major part of my work for some years and I have a decent understanding of how they can be distorted and how to interpret incomplete data sets. I see no issue with the stats I've seen re: religion in the west; all metrics point the same direction in all western countries, and it tallies with my personal observation.

If religions stopped interfering with people's private lives I'd have a very different view of them.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
YIOSTHEOY
Posts: 383
Joined: May 25th, 2016, 5:34 pm

Re: Why the obsession with the Judaeo-Christian God?

Post by YIOSTHEOY »

Greta wrote:
YIOSTHEOY wrote: (Nested quote removed.)

Statistics then ... you seem to be basing your philosophy on statistics. Is that right?

What if the stats are bad though? How would that affect your philosophy of religion?

And do you separate the Philosophy God of Aristotle and others from the Religion God of the various religions?
I'm not sure I "base any philosophy" on stats, or what that even means. Still, I take data more seriously than unsupported opinions, depending on whose opinion it is. Stats were a major part of my work for some years and I have a decent understanding of how they can be distorted and how to interpret incomplete data sets. I see no issue with the stats I've seen re: religion in the west; all metrics point the same direction in all western countries, and it tallies with my personal observation.

If religions stopped interfering with people's private lives I'd have a very different view of them.
But if so I did not see any data provided. I only saw unsupported opinions about data that supposedly exists somewhere.

My question is that since you seem to be basing your philosophy on those supposed data which have not been cited, and if those data turn out to be false, then would you also change your opinion about "God". And is there a difference in your mind between the "Philosophy God" of the philosophers versus the "Religious God" of the Old or New Testaments?
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