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/sci/ - Science & Math

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2189429

Anonymous Sat Dec 11 21:44:49 2010 No.2189429 [Reply] [Original]

"In our culture, as part of the so-called western world, there are undoubtedly components of Christian values. I think that among those values there are ethical and humane principles that are applicable to any epoch." - Fidel Castro

That`s basically how i think about it too, exept i think that believing in god`s existence is a cultural value too.
I know people who, i know for sure, are smarter, older and wiser then me, but still believe there is a god.
Who am i to think i know better then them... ???

I just want to make my point here, the existence of a god is not the most fundamental question for a lot of theists (while it seems that for most atheists it is a fundamental question).

THE REASON WHY, someone thinks there is a God is THE THING THEY BELIEF IN, not the idea of god itself.

In other words, someone can decide to rely on (belief in); culture, tradition, other people`s accounts, it`s own feeling, it`s own experience, extreme-scepticism, sceince, etc etc...
and see one or more of these aspects as fundemental and therefor must belief in a god, in order to fallow his/her own logic.

Note that being religious is reasonable.

anyway thanks for listening

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 21:47:49 2010 No.2189442 File: 80 KB, 1024x768, 1291060184707.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] bump

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 21:50:49 2010 No.2189451 >>2189429 >Note that being religious is reasonable. No it isn't, philosophers who were much smarter than you (which by your logic you should follow without question) and fervent believers came to conclusion that it most definitely wasn't.

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Anonymous Sat Dec 11 21:50:49 2010 No.2189453

>THE REASON WHY, someone thinks there is a God is THE THING THEY BELIEF IN, not the idea of god itself.

And this precisely why atheism is a belief rather than a lack of belief. It is not the question of God existing or not which they lack belief in, it is the reasons for God existing or not which they believe in. Thanks, OP/

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Anonymous Sat Dec 11 21:58:49 2010 No.2189476

>>2189451
And other philosophers who were much smarter than you have come to the conclusion that it is. But I guess you could always just pick the side you like best and act as if they have the problem solved. Or rather I observe that you could do that, because that's what you're doing.

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Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:13:49 2010 No.2189529

Good post OP. The people who I can respect follow the path of their own reason while having deep respect for and humility before tradition, culture, and other thinkers.

An example is Feynman, who, being very far from being a Christian, described Christianity as one of the two great heritages of western civilization, characterizing it as "humility of spirit"... the other being science, which he characterize as "humility of intellect".

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Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:18:49 2010 No.2189543

Religion and logic are wholly incompatible. Any arguments for religion based in reason will always fail. But of course humans are not logical beings; some see a need for religion, others don't. Belief in God is not a cultural value; belief in some higher power (Allah, math, society) is.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:19:49 2010 No.2189550 >>2189543 >reason and religion are incompatible >the greek philosophers didn't exist

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:20:49 2010 No.2189553 >>2189550 0/10, problem of evil, etc.

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Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:24:49 2010 No.2189577

>>2189476
No, philosophers after Kant generally agree that religion and faith are irrational. Philosophers who are both atheists and theists, mind you. The main question is that should reason be the highest virtue and whether or not reason should be a slave to faith or the other way around, or if faith transcends the entire concept of reason, among other things.

>>2189550
The Greek philosophers did not believe in any sort of personal god, Aristotle's unmoved mover is not 'God' in the sense we use it today.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:25:49 2010 No.2189581 >>2189553 0/10, free will, etc.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:26:49 2010 No.2189590 >>2189581 Well now you just aren't making any sense

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:28:49 2010 No.2189600 >>2189581 Free will doesn't vindicate God, according to the problem of evil, all free will provides for is a malevolent, rather than benevolent or strictly evil God.

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Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:29:49 2010 No.2189606

>>2189577
Well after Kant most "religion" has been irrational and all about strict adherence to dogma with no basis in reason... until you get to the more modern revitalization movements, like Gurdjeff. It also depends very heavily on who you call a philosopher.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:29:49 2010 No.2189607 >>2189577 All the Greek philosophers with the exception of the Democritus school believed in an infinite God who was the source of virtue and reason.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:33:49 2010 No.2189625 >>2189607 Again, an impersonal God more in line with viewing the Universe as 'God' or or nature or some such. Note that I said 'personal God'.

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Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:33:49 2010 No.2189627

>>2189600
>>2189590
The problem of evil has long been countered by the doctrine of free will (countered as in "I find that Tybalt cancels out Capitan, don't you?", not as in "mathematically disproven"), so it's not like saying "problem of evil" is clear proof that religion is inherently irrational.

And saying that free will just puts an evil God in the spotlight is merely your interpretation of the result; it is certainly not universal.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:34:49 2010 No.2189631 >>2189625 So it's only some kinds of religion you think are irrational then?

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:34:49 2010 No.2189635 >>2189577 >Read moar kierkegaard.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:35:49 2010 No.2189637 >>2189627 I can agree with that, however, faith is clearly irrational since it relies on belief in a subject with zero prediction and zero evidence. Thus, it is irrational.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:35:49 2010 No.2189642 >>2189625 You can't equate God with nature if you are equating God with virtue -- which they all did. They equated God with virtue and reason, which they saw as above nature.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:36:49 2010 No.2189646 >>2189637 That's not what rational means.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:38:49 2010 No.2189653 >>2189635 I guess I would say that Kierkegaard thought faith was arational, it transcended religion but as you say, I haven't read nearly enough of him.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:38:49 2010 No.2189655 >>2189637 I agree that this is true of most mainstream religion in the modern era in the industrial western world. But that's the dregs of religious tradition, so I can't say I'm terribly bothered.

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Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:40:49 2010 No.2189663

>>2189646
That's exactly what it means. How do we decide if something is rational? We test, experiment, and look to experience. This occurs on all levels, from scientific inquiry to day-to-day actions. If you undertook an action that all evidence disagreed with would you say you were acting rationally? I don't think so.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:43:49 2010 No.2189672 >>2189429 Those Christian values are what led Castro to discriminate against fags. I couldn't quite make out what the rest of your post was about, but yeah.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:46:49 2010 No.2189692 >philosophers after Kant generally agree that religion and faith are irrational. Nonsense. Probably the strongest argument of the compatibility between reason and revelation was by Gilson, who was after Kant.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:48:49 2010 No.2189706 >>2189663 No. That's not what it means. What you're defining is called empiricism, which actually makes reason subservient to observation.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:53:49 2010 No.2189734 >>2189607 Just because Plotinus tried to paint the Form of the Good as God doesn't make it so.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:56:49 2010 No.2189749 >>2189734 And what does make God God, then? The rantings of uneducated fundie evangelists? Nice work choosing an easy target there.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 22:58:49 2010 No.2189763 >>2189749 What? You're trying to claim the greatest of the Greek philosophers subscribed to your monotheistic garbage when that is flat out untrue.

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Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:03:49 2010 No.2189778

>>2189763
No, I am (a) not the person who brought up the Greek philosophers, (b) not a christian, and (c) pointing out that by way of what was pointed out in >>2189642, Greek philosophy cannot be adequately described without reference to the concept of personal god. It probably wasn't a binary idea, the way it's being made out ITT, but some attributes were certainly part of it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:06:49 2010 No.2189793 >>2189734 Plotinus got that from 800 years of philosophers before him going back to pythagoras and thales.

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Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:07:49 2010 No.2189799

>>2189778

Well seeing how the Form of the Good exists only in the world of ideas I think it's ridiculous to claim that it is equivalent to the God that supposedly exists in reality.

Because guess what? No one is arguing that the idea of God doesn't exist.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:09:49 2010 No.2189808 >>2189799 I'm not saying it's equivalent, I'm saying they're not exclusive.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:09:49 2010 No.2189811 >>2189763 >has never read the greek philosophers.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:10:49 2010 No.2189818 >>2189799 You've never studied philosophy, have you? The whole premise of neoplatonism is that the realm of ideas is the only real realm.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:11:49 2010 No.2189823 >>2189793 Funny how you keep falling back on philosophers with no extant writings. Guess if your viewpoint can't be falsified neither should your sources, eh? Guess what. Heraclitus wrote that you are a fag.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:12:49 2010 No.2189830 >>2189818 I was referring to Plato. Yes, Plotinus was a monotheist.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:18:49 2010 No.2189861 >>2189823 I'm referring to ALL of them, except the school of democritus.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:26:49 2010 No.2189898 >>2189830 Well, Plato is the one who said that the realm of idea is the real realm. He certainly believed in real God, the "demiurge", the infinite source of the finite, the "logos", the divine soul.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:26:49 2010 No.2189900 >>2189861 Except neither Plato nor Aristotle support it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:29:49 2010 No.2189916 >>2189898 The Logos was retroactively applied to Plato's writings by the later Hellenists. The Demiurge only appears in a single work and has nowhere near the connotations you attach to it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 11 23:31:49 2010 No.2189924 I think it is always wrong to believe a proposition because of peer pressure instead of believing it because of evidence. That's the opposite of human progress.