Dear theists, are you angry at me because I argue with you?

[Ruth Harris]

For me, it came down to one thing. Where did everything come from?

But a lack of explanation for where god came from does not cause you the same type of uncertainty? If not, then I am genuinely puzzled as to how you could say that not knowing where the universe came from was the one thing it came down to.

And you changed your question from when I received the email about a reply on this thread; you originally asked where God came from. But no problem - this is my original answer.

This is the question that every atheist asks - and here is my answer. We have been discussing where physical things (the singularity) came from. God is not a physical thing; He exists outside of our time and space boundaries, and has always existed. Einstein's special theory of relativity touches on this as it states that time and space are not absolute and the perception of time is relative based on the observer's point of view. There is nothing that prohibits the existence of God outside of our frame of reference.

I find it less problematic to believe in a non corporeal supreme being than in a physical object existing eternally outside of space and time. It is difficult for me to conceive of any way a physical object could have no beginning and I have yet to see any theory which explains this.

Ruth

 

[ruby sparks]

God is not a physical thing; He exists outside of our time and space boundaries, and has always existed.

This is exactly why I changed my question. You can have a go at my belatedly changed one. On second thoughts, it's ok. You have a problem in explaining the existence of the universe, but not god. That's a cinch for you and comes out as a clear statement as if factual and certain. What more can you say?

There is nothing that prohibits the existence of God outside of our frame of reference.

And nothing that requires a god either.

I find it less problematic to believe in a non corporeal supreme being than in a physical object existing eternally outside of space and time. It is difficult for me to conceive of any way a physical object could have no beginning and I have yet to see any theory which explains this.

Would you understand if I said that made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever? I don't even know what a 'non-corporeal being' could possibly be. I can't even think of a good reason to join the various words together to make the term.

No offense, but this sort of thing is just gobbledygook to me. I think I should invoke something I mentioned earlier and just not talk about god with you.

We could do elves instead.

No, that would be worse. You'd be offended and maybe call it a category error. But to me, it isn't. An elf is a different supposed supernatural being of essentially the same type, just with lesser supposed powers (mainly causing mischief).

 

[none]

Ruth seems like you are saying the universe is an isolated system...

 

[Ruth Harris]

This is exactly why I changed my question. You can have a go at my belatedly changed one. On second thoughts, it's ok. You have a problem in explaining the existence of the universe, but not god. That's a cinch for you and comes out as a clear statement as if factual and certain. What more can you say?



And nothing that requires a god either.

I find it less problematic to believe in a non corporeal supreme being than in a physical object existing eternally outside of space and time. It is difficult for me to conceive of any way a physical object could have no beginning and I have yet to see any theory which explains this.

Would you understand if I said that made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever? I don't even know what a 'non-corporeal being' could possibly be. I can't even think of a good reason to join the various words together to make the term.

No offense, but this sort of thing is just gobbledygook to me. I think I should invoke something I mentioned earlier and just not talk about god with you.

We could do elves instead.

No, that would be worse. You'd be offended and maybe call it a category error. But to me, it isn't. An elf is a different supposed supernatural being of essentially the same type, just with lesser supposed powers (mainly causing mischief).

Well, we could discuss elvenfolk - but I have to say I don't know much about them

Yes, I had an issue with the origin of the physical universe. To me, the most reasonable explanation is God as I described Him.

Correct, there is nothing that requires God either.

This is a question on the origin of the universe with two possible answers: one, did God as I described Him create the universe? Or two, was there no God but instead a physical object which had no beginning and existed outside of our time and space?

I don't take offense when someone says they don't understand how I can view things this way. Everyone has to come to their own understanding of our universe and their place in it. I just want to be clear on what my viewpoint is on this subject.

Still friends?

Ruth

 

[Ruth Harris]

Ruth seems like you are saying the universe is an isolated system...

No, not at all. The existence of God as I describe Him would be prohibited if we were in an isolated system.

Ruth

 

[ruby sparks]

One, did God as I described Him create the universe? Or two, was there no God but instead a physical object which had no beginning and existed outside of our time and space?

Pretty much yes. I personally don't see any problem at all in saying that something physical always existed (it might or might not be the current universe of course). In fact, I'd have a lot less trouble saying that than saying that a non-corporeal being of almost implausibly gargantuan intelligence first of all always existed and second, created physical stuff because (a) I have no good evidence that there are such things as non-corporeal beings, (b) I have no idea how one would make physical stuff or interact with it afterwards and (c) it seems overall easier and simpler, because the gargantuan intelligence thing is not required as an addition to the explanation. I might add (d) that the universe could easily look and be exactly as it is without non-corporeal beings of any sort. Including elves. Or Leprechauns to cite the local version.

ETA: the problem of suffering (I don't mean evil) is a real humdinger if you think god is just, loving and omnipotent. Don't even start me on punishment in the afterlife, especially for not loving god and especially not the eternal punishment variety. You can catch my problems with that in the omnipotence thread.

Still friends?

Yes, absolutely, but let's maybe not discuss god. Other topics might be better, and more fruitful. Seriously. I don't want to end up having a ding-dong about god when there are arguably far more important issues.

 

[none]

Ruth seems like you are saying the universe is an isolated system...

No, not at all. The existence of God as I describe Him would be prohibited if we were in an isolated system.

Ruth

so the empty rhetoric about god existing outside the universe is myth, got it

 

[Jobar]

Ruth, here's another passage from the works of Robert Ingersoll.

...There was put into my hands the new Congregational creed. I have read it, and I will call your attention to it to-night, to find whether that church has made any advance; to find whether the sun of science has risen in the heavens in vain; whether they are still the children of intellectual darkness; whether they still consider it necessary for you to believe something that you by no possibility can understand, in order to be a winged angel forever. Now, let us see what their creed is. I will read a little of it.

They commence by saying that they

"Believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible."

They say, now, that there is the one personal God; that he is the maker of the universe and its ruler. I again ask the old question; Of what did he make it? If matter has not existed through eternity, then this God made it. Of what did he make it? What did he use for the purpose? There was nothing in the universe except this God. What had the God been doing for the eternity he had been living? He had made nothing--called nothing into existence; never had had an idea, because it is impossible to have an idea unless there is something to excite an idea. What had he been doing? Why does not the Congregational Church tell us? How do they know about this Infinite Being? And if he is infinite how can they comprehend him? What good is it to believe in something that you know you do not understand, and that you never can understand?

In the Episcopalian creed God is described as follows:

"There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts or passions."

Think of that!--without body, parts, or passions. I defy any man in the world to write a better description of nothing. You cannot conceive of a finer word-painting of a vacuum than "without body, parts, or passions." And yet this God, without passions, is angry at the wicked every day; this God, without passions, is a jealous God, whose anger burneth to the lowest hell. This God, without passions, loves the whole human race; and this God, without passions, damns a large majority of mankind. This God without body, walked in the Garden of Eden, in the cool of the day. This God, without body, talked with Adam and Eve. This God, without body, or parts met Moses upon Mount Sinai, appeared at the door of the tabernacle, and talked with Moses face to face as a man speaketh to his friend. This description of God is simply an effort of the church to describe a something of which it has no conception.

 

[Underseer]

You're welcome. (And yes, I knew. )

But let me say that, though I urge my fellow unbelievers to control their tempers and rein in their anger when talking to believers, I still understand that anger very well.

I imagine most here have read this before, but if you haven't, you should. Greta Christina: Atheists and Anger

Wow. Just....wow. This is exactly the type of discussion I avoid, simply because there is no reply I can give that will make even the slightest impact on the original poster. There is no reasoning with that kind of anger. Note that I am NOT saying that I disagree with many of her points - but what good does it do to reinforce something that is nothing more than an out of control screed?

...those suffering from religious delusions...

And I find it very disappointing that you have used this terminology after your previous well thought out posts. This is not something that will engender good will on the part of any believer and incline them to listen to what you have to say.

Ruth

If you can't prove it, you don't know it.

If you believe something you can't prove, then by definition you are delusional.

I'm sorry if that offends you.

I try really, really hard to avoid calling theists stupid, because such insults are counterproductive.

But I do believe that theists are victims, and I think that their delusions are part of how they are controlled by the man in the pulpit.

 

[Hermit]

In my experience skeptics are *slightly* more mentally flexible, and do change their minds a bit more often than do religious believers. But I agree that it's still pretty rare.

[...]

In fact, when it comes to holding or discarding religious belief, I have to say that I've seen many more 'de-conversions' (loss of belief in God(s) and adoption of an atheist or agnostic philosophy) than I have 'conversions' (adopting a theistic stance after holding an atheistic one.) It may be that's because my experience is on skeptical boards like this one- but I've been told that even on believers' boards, loss of faith is a more common result of in-depth discussion of theology than is the opposite.

To be fair, going by the assumption that approximately four out of five people in your nation believe in a Christian god - and in Georgia probably even more - knowing four times more instances of deconversions than atheists turning to religion is no evidence that sceptics are even slightly more mentally flexible in regard to changing their minds. Further, the fact that the percentage of believers has been dropping in the past few decades is statistical proof that believers are more likely to change their mind - at least in regard to religious beliefs - than sceptics.

 

[Hermit]

Delusions are beliefs that are typically associated with mental illness in the primary definition - and I prefer to not be thought of as mentally ill

Delusions are not monopolised by the mentally ill. Not since Karl Jaspers, a psychiatrist and philosopher published Allgemeine Psychopathologie in1913 anyway. Previous to that mental illness was defined by the content of people's thoughts. Jaspers redefined it by the form it took. His new definition of delusion involved the following criteria:

• certainty (held with absolute conviction)
• incorrigibility (not changeable by compelling counterargument or proof to the contrary)
• impossibility or falsity of content (implausible, bizarre, or patently untrue)

Accepting these criteria as a definition of delusion it is clear that you don't need to be mentally ill to be deluded. Unfortunately the plebs - and sometimes well educated people (cough)Richard Dawkins(cough) - lag way behind new insights decades after they ceased to be new. It's why we still have young earth creationists, flat-earthers, revolutionary communists, radical libertarians and theists hehe using up valuable oxygen today.

 

[Jobar]

In my experience skeptics are *slightly* more mentally flexible, and do change their minds a bit more often than do religious believers. But I agree that it's still pretty rare.

[...]

In fact, when it comes to holding or discarding religious belief, I have to say that I've seen many more 'de-conversions' (loss of belief in God(s) and adoption of an atheist or agnostic philosophy) than I have 'conversions' (adopting a theistic stance after holding an atheistic one.) It may be that's because my experience is on skeptical boards like this one- but I've been told that even on believers' boards, loss of faith is a more common result of in-depth discussion of theology than is the opposite.

To be fair, going by the assumption that approximately four out of five people in your nation believe in a Christian god - and in Georgia probably even more - knowing four times more instances of deconversions than atheists turning to religion is no evidence that sceptics are even slightly more mentally flexible in regard to changing their minds. Further, the fact that the percentage of believers has been dropping in the past few decades is statistical proof that believers are more likely to change their mind - at least in regard to religious beliefs - than sceptics.

True, to an extent- but I think it also has much to do with the explosion of information via the internet, and also with the power of the arguments gainsaying religious belief. It is, after all, hard to believe the dogmas of most faiths if you aren't indoctrinated into them early in childhood, if you have any facility applying critical thought.

And I'd say that the ones who de-convert are in fact skeptics- though perhaps they didn't realize it before, or even resisted their doubtful thoughts for years before admitting their disbelief to themselves.

 

[Hermit]

In my experience skeptics are *slightly* more mentally flexible, and do change their minds a bit more often than do religious believers. But I agree that it's still pretty rare.

[...]

In fact, when it comes to holding or discarding religious belief, I have to say that I've seen many more 'de-conversions' (loss of belief in God(s) and adoption of an atheist or agnostic philosophy) than I have 'conversions' (adopting a theistic stance after holding an atheistic one.) It may be that's because my experience is on skeptical boards like this one- but I've been told that even on believers' boards, loss of faith is a more common result of in-depth discussion of theology than is the opposite.

To be fair, going by the assumption that approximately four out of five people in your nation believe in a Christian god - and in Georgia probably even more - knowing four times more instances of deconversions than atheists turning to religion is no evidence that sceptics are even slightly more mentally flexible in regard to changing their minds. Further, the fact that the percentage of believers has been dropping in the past few decades is statistical proof that believers are more likely to change their mind - at least in regard to religious beliefs - than sceptics.

True, to an extent- but I think it also has much to do with the explosion of information via the internet, and also with the power of the arguments gainsaying religious belief. It is, after all, hard to believe the dogmas of most faiths if you aren't indoctrinated into them early in childhood, if you have any facility applying critical thought.

And I'd say that the ones who de-convert are in fact skeptics- though perhaps they didn't realize it before, or even resisted their doubtful thoughts for years before admitting their disbelief to themselves.

You seem to have missed my point, which was that you need to re-examine your assertion that "skeptics are *slightly* more mentally flexible, and do change their minds a bit more often than do religious believers", at least in regard to religion.

 

[bilby]

It seems unreasonable to laud people for changing their minds, unless their original position was wrong.

What makes skepticism useful is not that it causes people to change their minds, it's that it causes people who are wrong to change their minds.

Measuring the frequency with which people switch from their prior beliefs to new beliefs tells us nothing about which group tends towards skepticism, unless we know which group are conforming to the facts. When both groups claim that they are right, and that the other group is wrong, they will inevitably both claim that switching to their side is an indication of healthy skepticism, while switching away from their side is an indication of misunderstanding, indoctrination, error, or ignorance.

 

[Hermit]

When both groups claim that they are right, and that the other group is wrong, they will inevitably both claim that switching to their side is an indication of healthy skepticism, while switching away from their side is an indication of misunderstanding, indoctrination, error, or ignorance.

Good point. Thank you. There's a tendency among atheists, particularly among atheist activists, that scepticism is an attribute exclusive to atheism. Theists just so happen to be sceptical about the validity of atheist stances.

 

[Jobar]

True, to an extent- but I think it also has much to do with the explosion of information via the internet, and also with the power of the arguments gainsaying religious belief. It is, after all, hard to believe the dogmas of most faiths if you aren't indoctrinated into them early in childhood, if you have any facility applying critical thought.

And I'd say that the ones who de-convert are in fact skeptics- though perhaps they didn't realize it before, or even resisted their doubtful thoughts for years before admitting their disbelief to themselves.

You seem to have missed my point, which was that you need to re-examine your assertion that "skeptics are *slightly* more mentally flexible, and do change their minds a bit more often than do religious believers", at least in regard to religion.

But, if my opinion that the ones who deconvert are more properly named skeptics than believers is so, that indicates I'm correct.

Ah, snug lie those that slumber
Beneath Conviction's roof.
Their floors are sturdy lumber
Their windows weatherproof.
But I sleep cold forever
And cold sleep all my kind
For I was born to shiver
In the draft from an open mind.
-Phyllis McGinley

Understand, I'm not saying that religious belief indicates a person is totally close-minded, or necessarily makes one so. But I'm sure any of us can quote any number of religious authorities, books, or hymns which praise the virtues of steadfast, even blind, clinging to dogma. Those who do so cling, even in the face of evidence against their beliefs, are fairly called less flexible and open minded than ones who do not. Wouldn't you agree?

 

[ruby sparks]

What about this:

"A meta-analysis of 63 studies showed a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity. The association was stronger for college students and the general population than for participants younger than college age; it was also stronger for religious beliefs than religious behavior. For college students and the general population, means of weighted and unweighted correlations between intelligence and the strength of religious beliefs ranged from -.20 to -.25 (mean r = -.24).

Three possible interpretations were discussed. First, intelligent people are less likely to conform and, thus, are more likely to resist religious dogma. Second, intelligent people tend to adopt an analytic (as opposed to intuitive) thinking style, which has been shown to undermine religious beliefs. Third, several functions of religiosity, including compensatory control, self-regulation, self-enhancement, and secure attachment, are also conferred by intelligence. Intelligent people may therefore have less need for religious beliefs and practices."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23921675

 

[bilby]

What about this:

"A meta-analysis of 63 studies showed a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity. The association was stronger for college students and the general population than for participants younger than college age; it was also stronger for religious beliefs than religious behavior. For college students and the general population, means of weighted and unweighted correlations between intelligence and the strength of religious beliefs ranged from -.20 to -.25 (mean r = -.24).

Three possible interpretations were discussed. First, intelligent people are less likely to conform and, thus, are more likely to resist religious dogma. Second, intelligent people tend to adopt an analytic (as opposed to intuitive) thinking style, which has been shown to undermine religious beliefs. Third, several functions of religiosity, including compensatory control, self-regulation, self-enhancement, and secure attachment, are also conferred by intelligence. Intelligent people may therefore have less need for religious beliefs and practices."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23921675

They seem to have missed an obvious fourth interpretation: Religious beliefs are factually wrong, and more intelligent people are better able to determine that this is the case.

 

[Lion IRC]

Defining intelligence is as easy as the texas sharpshooter fallacy.

 

[Hermit]

True, to an extent- but I think it also has much to do with the explosion of information via the internet, and also with the power of the arguments gainsaying religious belief. It is, after all, hard to believe the dogmas of most faiths if you aren't indoctrinated into them early in childhood, if you have any facility applying critical thought.

And I'd say that the ones who de-convert are in fact skeptics- though perhaps they didn't realize it before, or even resisted their doubtful thoughts for years before admitting their disbelief to themselves.

You seem to have missed my point, which was that you need to re-examine your assertion that "skeptics are *slightly* more mentally flexible, and do change their minds a bit more often than do religious believers", at least in regard to religion.

But, if my opinion that the ones who deconvert are more properly named skeptics than believers is so, that indicates I'm correct.

To me it indicates blatantly circular reasoning. Also, where does that leave your proposition that "skeptics are *slightly* more mentally flexible, and do change their minds a bit more often than do religious believers"?