Comments on: The Future Of Religion

By: HowBow

HowBow — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 04:21:10 +0000

Jefferson said that the free exchange of opinions was our most important freedom because all of our other freedoms depended on it. Opinion is belief without evidence. Religious opinion is elevated to the more impressive term Faith. Religions have opinions that differ. All these opinions cannot be true. But they can all be false.
I agree with Dostoevski who said he couldn’t believe in a god who would let children suffer.
Why does god allow suffering? “It’s a mystery.”
It would be better for god’s reputatuion if god didn’t exist.

(I avoid “He” for obvious reasons.)

By: ivpomj

ivpomj — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 16:53:48 +0000

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By: Bobby Fernandez

Bobby Fernandez — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:31:47 +0000

Callum, I’ve been to the UK four times. I know that there is a philosophical gulf between you and I that can not be crossed here in this forum, especially if the comments take the long form and rely on multiple assumptions. Let me then at least address one assertion of yours. Our founders (your rebels) sought to establish a secular government. That is not to be mistaken with a secular society. They knew that there was a shift towards secularization in the societies of Europe at play and they made sure to put limitations on the power of the state so that the citizens would be able and free to maintain their faith in God. Even so-called deists like Jefferson and Edison were aware that in order for this American experiment to be successful, the people would have to maintain a solid foundation of faith in something other than the state. We are both running our own trials in secularization. You lot are a few hundred years ahead of us so we’ll see how this one turns out eventually.

By: Bobby Fernandez

Bobby Fernandez — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:21:56 +0000

Callum, first of all, it shouldn’t get on your nerves because I am a scientist who is aware of the epistemology of all the core sciences. To say that we take something on faith is not to say there is no evidence of it. The point where we disagree is illustrated in your comment in the thread below. You deny all causation when it comes to goodness and religion. I am sure Sam is much more familiar with the psychological and epidemiological studies concerning quality of life and faith but the benefits of religion far surpass just these two areas. We have tested religion out in multiple laboratories (cultures, states, eras, etc.) and although there have been some negative effects, it is through reason, understanding of contextual history, human nature, science and economics that I believe that religion is by far superior at making good human beings.

By: Callum James Hackett

Callum James Hackett — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:12:52 +0000

As a citizen of the UK, I would much, much, much prefer to live in a Western European country than in America, and particularly the Scandinavian countries are rightly held up as supreme examples of what our democracies should become. America denies its citizens the fundamental right to universal health-care, which is a democratic travesty, and the political system panders to religious fundamentalists, allowing insane candidates like Rick Santorum a popular platform. This is all despite secularism having been written into your constitution! Much of the American population is woefully ignorant of their history, despite it being such a young country. I find the U.S. frightening, and I wish it didn’t have so much power. Your image of Europe is one that has been fed to you by right-wing American politicians who like to spread fear of communism. In reality, you have the financial freedom to generate income equality and the OWS movement, and lack any social liberty that ought to be the staple of a 21st century society. The fact that there are people gaining such traction against gay marriage and abortion is a travesty to be ashamed of, and Europe laughs scornfully.

G. K. Chesterton, by the way, quite evidently got it wrong. When a man is willing to believe in something without evidence, it immediately follows that he could believe in anything – in the pseudoscience of crystals and homeopathy and psychics. When a man stops believing in God, he very often does so because he founds his worldview on evidence, therefore he can only ever believe those things which are grounded in empirical fact.

By: Callum James Hackett

Callum James Hackett — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:05:39 +0000

Bobby, it really gets on my nerves when people say that scientists take a leap of faith. We’ve never seen atoms, we’ve never witnessed the big bang, and we cannot get our heads around quantum mechanics. But why do we subscribe to these ideas? Because the models work, the maths works out, and we know this for a fact because of experimental evidence and predictive power. We have never seen an electron, but it is electricity that allows the world to communicate. We have never seen a radio wave, but it is what brought us TV for decades. It is disingenuous to state that the things we cannot see with our feeble senses which science describes therefore allows us to postulate invisible beings. There is no experimental evidence for such a being, there is no predictive power or purpose, it lends nothing to society or culture, and the very concept has no intrinsic logical superiority to fairies.

By: Bobby Fernandez

Bobby Fernandez — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:58:37 +0000

Jim, we agree our schools have failed. Good, but my concept of failure is not reliant on a particular argument, one way or another. The failure is that whichever argument they provide lacks sophistication. The same is true in the larger debate on religion vs. secular humanism/supranaturalism. The lack of evidence argument is one that troubles me because there are tons of things we accept that we have never before seen. We’ve never seen an idividual atom. It’s only been a couple years that we have had pictures of molecules (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1209726/Single-molecule-million-times-smaller-grain-sand-pictured-time.html) yet nearly all of our modern science is dependant on the quantam leap of faith that such things exist. If the physicists of the world took your position of, I’ll believe it when I see it on CNN, we would all still be living in the Newtonian era. There is vast evidence for God’s existance, many just choose to ignore it.

By: JimPurdy.blogspot.com

JimPurdy.blogspot.com — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:46:29 +0000

Bobby, yes, our schools have failed to teach American children about evolution, even though it’s been more than 150 years since Darwin published overwhelming evidence . Otherwise there would be no old folks being duped into sending their money to tell-a-lie-evangelists. I would still watch for that interview with god, but I don’t see any evidence that she ever existed outside of fairy tales.

By: Bobby Fernandez

Bobby Fernandez — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:31:59 +0000

Ok, if that’s what you’ll give me to work with, here goes…

Your 50 year qualitative, n=however many people you have met in your life, experiment is more reason-based and reliable than 2000+ years of philosophical inquiry in to what makes for a good society? Also, you think it reason based to deny everything you don’t see on CNN? (ok, that last one was a little tongue-in-cheek)

Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive. Both sides are guilty of this belief and it frustrates me to no end. It’s a symptom of how poorly our schools have taught us to think and use logic. That is why I appreciate Sam’s work.

By: JimPurdy.blogspot.com

JimPurdy.blogspot.com — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:05:02 +0000

Sorry, Bobby, but after 50-plus years of trying to find a reasonable superstitious person, I’ve come to realize that you folks just don’t have any facts to bring to the table. But if you ever locate any real gods, just call CNN and I’ll be happy to watch that interview with god.