[mikeh]

 Trinidad, on 2014-April-13, 03:44, said:

Concluding, there are quite a few things that you can hold against the RC church. But seeking the cause for the world's overpopulation in the ideas of a few popes in Rome on the subject of birth control is simply incorrect. When you seek the cause there, you are violating Occam's razor. The simple (and therefore better) explanation is: "It's the economy, stupid!"

Rik

Debating on the internet is so much fun, isn't it? I never sought the cause of the world's overpopulation in the ideas of a few popes in Rome.

The fact that I never made such an assertion would spoil your fun, but only if you actually intended to respond to me rather than the straw men you prefer to debate.

socio-economic factors of course predominate in how various people practice or don't practice birth control, and it is no wonder that some elements in the RC church are considering or advocating for a change in church doctrine. Say what one will about organized religions, but the successful ones learn to rewrite even core beliefs in the face of the need to do so or to lose too many adherents. See how Mormons recognized blacks as real people in the 1970s. See how the RC Church rejected geocentralism. See how that church has reluctantly, and in a deviously misleading way, accepted some form of Darwinian evolution. Now, since so many educated believers are ignoring what was formerly a very important church doctrine, church doctrine will likely change. Never underestimate the ability of religious leaders to change doctrine in order to maintain power.

The fact remains that ask any bishop or archbishop (and most priests and nuns outside of the western world) whether birth control is acceptable, and I would be amazed if most did not say it was not.

It is absurd for you to argue that the official position of the RC Church on contraception, abortion, the status of women, etc represents an extreme view of Christianity. That would be as absurd as my saying that the roman catholic church is representative of most sects in the religion...a position I do not hold. You seem to think that only someone with whose views you agree can be called a moderate. My view is that it is probably fair to say that maybe 10% at each end of the spectrum of views should be considered 'extreme'....maybe a higher percentage in large parts of the US with their bizarre evangelical churches, but around the world, I would think that 'moderate' incudes a wide range of views on many subjects and probably it is reasonable to consider that 'moderate' covers 60-80% of the spectrum. When you limit 'moderate' to a narrow segment whose ideas correspond with yours, you are being intellectually dishonest or naïve.

Strangely, your description of RC practice, as understood by you, matches my take on the true nature of religion and how it blinds its victims.

As I have said before, no Xian actually practices what they claim to be the word of god. More and more often excuses or rationalizations are used to allow the believer to ignore those parts of the religion that are inconvenient. I wish I could point you to the study of which I reads some time ago, in which psychologists determined that believers tended, strongly, to picture their god's views on topics as corresponding with their own. We invent our gods in our own image, not the other way around.

So the RC birth controlling people have managed to rationalize their view of what is moral even tho it contravenes the commands of the hierarchy of their church. In a similar vein, believers can rationalize away all of the other absurdities and inconsistencies between reality and what the church teaches, and from my reading, very few, if any, even realize what they are doing.

It is the tacit acceptance of this approach to reality that permits fundamentalists to exist. The difference between a believer and an atheist is qualitative. The difference between a moderate and an extremist believer is quantitative.

[nige1]

 Vampyr, on 2014-April-13, 09:06, said:

What I said was that I don't know whether it is a good thing.

Sorry, Vampyr. I wasn't trying to misrepresent your views Speaking for myself, I believe that the survival of the human race and the planet, for a bit longer, is a good thing.

[mike777]

Does an atheist ever act on a belief, with the lack of evidence?

In any event clearly there is evidence that nature kills, nature destroys, that nature harms and harms often. Nature is deadly, nature is harmful.

[kenberg]

 mike777, on 2014-April-13, 11:40, said:

Does an atheist ever act on a belief, with the lack of evidence?

I am and I do.

[Trinidad]

 mikeh, on 2014-April-13, 10:11, said:

Debating on the internet is so much fun, isn't it?

No, it isn't. Not with someone who qualifies someone else's ideas as "absurd" without giving any argumentation. (Lots of text is not the same as argumentation.)

 mikeh, on 2014-April-13, 10:11, said:

I never sought the cause of the world's overpopulation in the ideas of a few popes in Rome.

No, you also blame the bishops, archbishops, priests and nuns:

 mikeh, on 2014-April-13, 10:11, said:

The fact remains that ask any bishop or archbishop (and most priests and nuns outside of the western world) whether birth control is acceptable, and I would be amazed if most did not say it was not.

but, at least, now you blame "most", where previously it was all.

I said that the views on birth control by the RC hierarchy were extreme in the RC church and were not followed by the mainstream RC population, a statement which you labeled "absurd".

Just think of what would have happened if you were correct and the RC mainstream in Europe and Latin America would have faithfully followed the doctrine from Rome and produced 10 children per family during the past 50 years. The world population would be written with 11 digits instead of 10 and we probably would be writing this in Spanish.

So, given that BBO was not launched by Frederico Gitelhombre, we can safely conclude that the views from the RC hierarchy on birth control are, indeed, extreme and that the average RC follower is much more moderate (and wise...).

Rik

[Winstonm]

 Trinidad, on 2014-April-13, 13:55, said:

No, it isn't. Not with someone who qualifies someone else's ideas as "absurd" without giving any argumentation. (Lots of text is not the same as argumentation.)


No, you also blame the bishops, archbishops, priests and nuns:


but, at least, now you blame "most", where previously it was all.

I said that the views on birth control by the RC hierarchy were extreme in the RC church and were not followed by the mainstream RC population, a statement which you labeled "absurd".

Just think of what would have happened if you were correct and the RC mainstream in Europe and Latin America would have faithfully followed the doctrine from Rome and produced 10 children per family during the past 50 years. The world population would be written with 11 digits instead of 10 and we probably would be writing this in Spanish.

So, given that BBO was not launched by Frederico Gitelhombre, we can safely conclude that the views from the RC hierarchy on birth control are, indeed, extreme and that the average RC follower is much more moderate (and wise...).

Rik

Rik,

It is absurd to make the statement that the mainstream RC population establishes RC theology by their refusal to follow dogma they find disagreeable and then claim this is a victory for religious beliefs, when what it does most clearly is support Mike's argument that disagreeable aspects of religion are changed over time to fit modern lifestyles, which is clearly an argument against any type of steady, unchanging god to start with.



If religion reflects god, then god is more than willing to change her mind about what is allowed and what is not.

The issue, though, is that the same god worshiped by the moderate, in whatever guise you wish to argue, is the same god worshiped by the fanatical follower who bombs abortions clinics or business towers. There can be no argument that the moderates' belief in an invisible god supports the fanatics' beliefs in that same invisible god, regardless of what name is given to the god or what book is considered divinely inspired.

[mikeh]

 Trinidad, on 2014-April-13, 13:55, said:

No, it isn't. Not with someone who qualifies someone else's ideas as "absurd" without giving any argumentation. (Lots of text is not the same as argumentation.)


No, you also blame the bishops, archbishops, priests and nuns:


but, at least, now you blame "most", where previously it was all.

Rik

Are you truly functionally illiterate?

I said and maintain that the catholic hierarchy would generally assert, today, that contraception is a sin. I did not and never have said that that is the reason or a reason for overpopulation. As I have tried to say, time and time again, religions are opportunistic. They evolve and adapt and often espouse values that are in keeping with their audience's core values. Since in ancient times, having large families had real value, it is no surprise that religions encouraged large families. Indeed, some still do.

Religions adapt to the varying values of their believers, at least as much as they constrain or impose those values. Religion is about control, and control is only possible with willing followers. So as societal values evolve, religions adjust their dogma or they lose relevance. Given the nature of any large organization, the churches generally lag, in their official positions, the changing face of society.

Thus, now, many religious functionaries continue to espouse official positions that are not well-observed by believers. The fact that most bishops would oppose contraception is not the same as saying that that position has a major role in over-population. In ancient times, it was the socio-economic virtue in large families that caused religions to advocate large families....any church that said otherwise wasn't going to prosper. IOW, you should consider the sequence of cause and affect.

Have I made myself clear, or is your cognitive dissonance still dictating how you interpret you read?

[Vampyr]

 Trinidad, on 2014-April-13, 13:55, said:

Just think of what would have happened if you were correct and the RC mainstream in Europe and Latin America would have faithfully followed the doctrine from Rome and produced 10 children per family during the past 50 years. The world population would be written with 11 digits instead of 10 and we probably would be writing this in Spanish.

Many Catholics follow the doctrine but use the explicitly-permitted calendar-based method of preventing conception.

[nige1]

 mikeh, on 2014-April-12, 22:06, said:

Nonsense.
The universe holds, as far as we can determine, no opinion about humans surviving. However, humans have evolved with a strong desire to procreate and to perpetuate the species. A desire to see humans continue into the future is a clearly adaptive feature. All life that has evolved any form of intelligence seems to use that intelligence to further their procreation.
Therefore for a human to hold a belief that it is a 'good thing' for humanity to survive is nothing but natural and, across the species as a whole, leaving aberrant individuals to one side, inevitable. It is important to understand that when an atheist or a secularist asserts that it is a good thing for humanity to flourish, that comes with no suggestion that this is 'objectively' valid to any thing or entity other than humans (and probably, dogs )

It is, of course, typical of a religious believer to try to assert, usually without explanatory information, that opinions held by atheists are equivalent to religious belief. I am sure that helps the religious believer continue to ignore his or her cognitive blindspot, but it is sad to see intelligent people so crippled by their indoctrination that they can't even see how their thinking is distorted. Religious people see themselves as so central to the universe that the entire universe was created 13.8 billion years ago just in order that we could seek salvation.....it took roughly 13.799 billion years to get to bothering with jesus, and there sure seems to be a lot of extraneous stuff out there, if we are the main point of all of this, lol.
I think it would be good for humanity to flourish, but it is definitely arguable that it is against the interests of most of all other life forms on the earth for us to remain around much longer.....from the point of view of most 'wild' species, the best thing that could happen would be for humanity to quickly succumb to a deadly virus
Godbots, unless they are praying for the end times, would generally disagree (as would I), but perhaps for the main reason that they see humans (or their flavour of human) as special.

Summarising my moderate orthodox view on moral belief:

You can't deduce a morality ("ought") from science ("is") without unprovable hypotheses

• X is good.
• You ought to act so as to foster good.

Where X is "Personal wealth" or "Human rights" or "The happiness of the greatest number" or "The survival of the planet" or whatever.

Early in this topic, I advanced this argument several times, in more detail. Unfortunately, Mikeh claims that those who disagree with him are "ignorant" and their posts are "nonsense" or "offensive" or "insulting" or "lies". This makes rational argument harder. A pity because he makes some good points, himself.

[mikeh]

 nige1, on 2014-April-13, 18:13, said:

Summarising my moderate orthodox view on moral belief:

You can't deduce a morality ("ought") from science ("is") without unprovable hypotheses

• X is good.
• You ought to act so as to foster good.

Where X is "Personal wealth" or "Human rights" or "The Happiness of the greatest number" or "The Life of the planet" or whatever.

Early in this topic, I advanced this argument several times, in more detail. Unfortunately, Mikeh claims that those who disagree with him are "ignorant" and their posts are "nonsense" or "offensive" or "insulting" or "lies". This makes rational argument harder. A pity because he makes some good points, himself.

maybe we were talking past each other. I understood you to say that while religious propositions, such as 'god' could not be explained by science, neither could the common belief that it is a good think for humanity to flourish. And I argued that in fact the holding of such a belief by humans is entirely logical and derives from evolutionary ideas: scientific ideas and logic.

It seems I may have misunderstood you...and that we are basically in agreement that such a belief may be explicable but cannot be shown to be objectively valid from any but a subjective, human point of view.

[nige1]

 mikeh, on 2014-April-13, 18:38, said:

maybe we were talking past each other. I understood you to say that while religious propositions, such as 'god' could not be explained by science, neither could the common belief that it is a good think for humanity to flourish. And I argued that in fact the holding of such a belief by humans is entirely logical and derives from evolutionary ideas: scientific ideas and logic.

It seems I may have misunderstood you...and that we are basically in agreement that such a belief may be explicable but cannot be shown to be objectively valid from any but a subjective, human point of view.

I want to believe in free will and so distinguish moral choices from biological imperatives.

[mikeh]

 nige1, on 2014-April-13, 18:51, said:

I want to believe in free will and so distinguish moral choices from biological imperatives.

Free will seems like a nice idea, but is so far unprovable, and may well turn out not to exist. I have done a lot of work litigating brain injury cases, and so have done a lot of reading in neuropsychology, as well as the physical characteristics of trauma to the brain. It is difficult to retain a belief in free will when one sees how predictable are the effects of certain injuries, Indeed, the experiments done on people who have had the two hemispheres of their brains disconnected are really fascinating and they also make me very sceptical about free will. That doesn't mean I believe in fate or predestination. I am an agnostic when it comes to this issue, since the evidence hasn't yet seemed to give rise to a coherent, testable theory.

I do appreciate the insight in your post...you hold to a theory not because the evidence persuades you of its validity but because you want to believe. I am sure that some of my beliefs have at least some element in common with that approach

[kenberg]

 nige1, on 2014-April-13, 18:51, said:

I want to believe in free will and so distinguish moral choices from biological imperatives.

I look at free will as follows: Perhaps it is the case that if we knew enough about neuroscience, about psychology, about each other, we could predict with confidence and accuracy how each person would decide each thing. Sort of analogous to saying that if we knew enough about the location and velocity of every atom we could say just where they would all go. But even though the physical case is, or seems, simpler even that doesn't work. There is chaotic dynamics. OK, chaotic dynamics accepts determinism if we know with full precision, which we don't. So there is Quantum Mechanics, which as I get it insists on some probabilistic features. But of course when we sum the effects, probabilities obey laws. But more to the point, at least for me, is that we don't know that much and even with all we do know, it's not enough. What good is it to say that some super genius, or some computer, can predict how I will finish this note if I still have to decide for myself what I will do. Maybe the computer knows, but I don't know, so for all practical purposes I have free will.

Actually, it matters. I just read The Tiger's Wife, an interesting book by the way. By far my favorite character was the tiger. The author hops around in time, a character is bad, quite bad, and she hops in time a bit and we see how this could be. But still, he is bad. He makes choices, we hold him responsible for those choices. In my view, if we ever decide that person X is so damaged so as to not be responsible for his choices then society must assume that responsibility, but society can only do so if society is also given great control over his actions. Probably we lock him up. Such a power should be deployed only with great caution. But to my mind, it makes no sense to say "He has a right to choose" while also saying "He is not responsible for his choices". We have free will and we are responsible for how we make use of it.

[Codo]

 Winstonm, on 2014-April-10, 11:45, said:

The basic consensus of Christianity is that its truth is derived from the same source: a specific book. After that, all forms of Christianity are simply variations of interpretations of those words.

It doesn't really matter that some or even all the Lutherans in Europe now find fault with the misogynist views encouraged by their own holy book. That only shows the secular intrusion into bastions of religion brought about by the cognitive dissonance that occurs when fable keeps smacking headlong into increasing knowledge.

Here is the key issue: if the vast majority of the world rejected supernatural beliefs and adopted an evidence-based system of forming worldviews then fanatic Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc would all feel the weight of peer pressure to "stop being silly".

But because you continue to "be silly", you can only do what everyone else does, condemn actions taken, but you cannot chastise any fanatic for the core problem that is at the heart of fantasism: they are "being silly", too.

Did you eveer study the Bible? I guess you did not. But as a hint: 1. There are passages who simply contradict each other. And there are MUCH more parts,which fit into the times in which they had been written- e.g. about slavery, stoning, burning people etc.
So, the BIble was (like the Choran, who suffers from the same problems if you take it literally) never intended as a book to answer all your questions and to give you rules for any given situation for the next twothousand years. Well okay, maybe it wass intended as such, but it should not been taken as such from any intelligent person, nowadays.

Why do you think that a Holy Book must be given rules for any given situation in any given century? Why don't you think that a God will leave it to us and our descission how to act and to give us just something to think about? Do you have the picture of billions of blidn people who are not able to read the Bible/Choran/other holy books on their own andcann see the truth? I mean, of course such blind people exist, I would not deny this. But if their are in the majority in your life, you live between too mayn stupid people, you should think about moving...

You may use the Bible to read and think. If you think that you still should be stoning pairs who have sex during the "bloody" phase or that it is okay to kill a whole village just because... ( I have forgotten the reason), I cannot help you. But, hopefully the theists do not share this point of view even in the Bible belt. If they do: May God be gracious. But I do not no ONE single person who thinks this way. But I have the fun to know some people who think that they can convince with citing the Bible, e.g. if you talk about homosexuality. But it is quite easy to make them blush and silent. Search the internet for phrases you may use.

But no, this is not the key issue. Mankind has shown million times that it does not need to be religious to be fanatic. If you cannot kill your enemy for religious reasons, you will find others. Had been shown by history a million times.

And what do you mean by "evidencebased" system? In its heart, religion is about believe. How can you believe if you have evidence?

My problem hereat BBF is that it sounds as if religion is the key to many problems. But so far I see nothing to back up this statement, because everything silly, bloody and horrible which had been done in the name of God had been done in the name of a state/an idea/with no reason at all. ALL religions that I know (okay not too many) have a lot of etics in their heart. E.g. if anybody would follow the ten commitments, life would be nice. An equal set of rules is there for mormons, muslim, etc. Of course you can have the same thing without religion, I would never challenge that. But the problem is allways that people do not stick to these rules. This is the "key issue" and this is true for atheists, christians, muslims, Hindi, etc...

[Codo]

 mikeh, on 2014-April-10, 18:28, said:

You seem to lack basic reading comprehension skills, or (and this is more likely, given that you are clearly intelligent) you are unable to see past your own prejudices.

Of course any informed person knows very well that there are numerous sects within Xianity, as there are in all major religions. Indeed, some versions of Xianity do treat people fairly, and without prejudice based on gender or colour of skin, etc. Good for them, but as Winston points out they have had to rationalize away many of the teachings of the bible in order to do this.

Indeed, without fail, no mainstream Xian sect reads the bible at face value...even those who claim that the bible is the inerrant word of god. All Xians rationalize, and pick and choose which parts to accept as fact, which as metaphor or analogy, and so on. None seem to see the absurdity that is apparent to non-believers of the choices made, and the incredible self-deception that has to be perpetrated to swallow all this.

It is that aspect of moderate Xianity that acts as a cover or shield for fundies. The vast majority of humans believe in magic and superstition, but they don't see 'their' beliefs in that light, even tho most of them would cheerfully use such language to describe the religions of the ancient greeks, or romans, or Persians, etc.

If, as Winston says, the great majority of humans saw that all religious faith was silly, then the fundies would stand out and be embarrassed, isolated, maybe jailed if they acted out as their books tell them they must.

You say I am bashing all xianians. I say that I am asserting that ALL religious belief is silly...ALL of it is utterly disconnected from any empirical evidence and is based on REQUIRING the shutting down of that most precious human trait: the ability to think critically. Moderates of all religions evidently DO have the ability to think critically, since they accept evidence-based reasoning in much of their lives, but none of them can see into or past the blind spot implanted by religious belief.

To use your language, it would be funny if it were not so sad.

Well Stephanie wrote "all", so no, my comprehensive skills are not challenged. She made simply a statement which can be proven false.

But maybe we will find some things we really agree on:
Luckily nobody I knows takes the Holy Book as a simple: How to live a life. But why should we? Someone just had to read and understand the text to get to know that this would be impossible. As I wrote to Winston, there are even disputing claims in different parts. And you can see quite a big change during the times, espacially from the ancient to the new testamony. So, if you agree -say- with the statements from the ancient parts, you are in serious trouble with the new one. E.g. in theancient it says an eye for an eye, in the new "turn the other cheek". Very difficult to follow both at the same time. So, when the Bible was in any way intentional, it was surely not made as a simple signpost but as a descirption of history and some rules to think about.

So the question is: Who tells you - or fanatic Bible belivers- that a holy book must be a guide for your live?

I think that you may respect the ancient philosophers like Aristoteles and Platon. Do you really think that they wrote the eternal and final truth? I do not. Philosophy did develop. As did mathematics, as did well nearly anything. So why do you think that Christians should stick to the Bible like a novice driver to the road traffic act without the ability to think?

So besides your opinion that people like me lost the ability to think critical- any evidence?
Maybe we can agree that fanatics cannot think critically anymore- they would take the Bible/Choran/Hubbard/Dawkings litterally without thinking about it...

[Trinidad]

 mikeh, on 2014-April-13, 15:04, said:

Are you truly functionally illiterate?

No. Are you really incapable of using normal language and showing a bit of respect?

 mikeh, on 2014-April-13, 15:04, said:

I said and maintain that the catholic hierarchy would generally assert, today, that contraception is a sin.

I said the same, but that is completely besides the point.

You stated that the views of the RC hierarchy are mainstream RC views. I state the views of the RC hierarchy are extreme within the RC church, as evidenced by the relatively limited population of this planet. You call that "absurd", denying the obvious evidence, which makes you as religious as the people you are combatting.

Rik

[Trinidad]

 Vampyr, on 2014-April-13, 15:12, said:

Many Catholics follow the doctrine but use the explicitly-permitted calendar-based method of preventing conception.

Perhaps.

My impression is that the vast majority of catholics use other (better working and not permitted) methods. But that, indeed, a minority uses a calendar-based method. Those few couples stand out since they usually have more than 2 children...

Rik

[mikeh]

 Trinidad, on 2014-April-14, 05:40, said:

No. Are you really incapable of using normal language and showing a bit of respect?

I said the same, but that is completely besides the point.

You stated that the views of the RC hierarchy are mainstream RC views. I state the views of the RC hierarchy are extreme within the RC church, as evidenced by the relatively limited population of this planet. You call that "absurd", denying the obvious evidence, which makes you as religious as the people you are combatting.

Rik

You repeatedly claimed that I had made certain statements: statements that are to be found nowhere in anything I have posted. You doubled down on that attitude: I called you out on it.

You are either incapable of reading and understanding plain English or you are deliberately misstating my views, in order to create the appearance that you have a strong rebuttal. That is a common trick of unethical debaters: assert that the other debater has made a claim and refute it, without regard to the fact that the other debater said something far different.

If you want me to be polite towards you, to afford you the respect you think you are worth, then stop stooping to such tactics. Now, if you really think I said that I blamed a few popes in Rome for the world's overpopulation, or that (after you refuted that assertion) I expanded the blame to priests, bishops and nuns, let me suggest that you take the time to actually read what I have written. I will unreservedly apologize to you if you can show where I made those assertions.

Once you treat my arguments with respect, then and only then will I treat you with respect. You don't get to grossly distort my arguments, refuse to acknowledge that you have done so, and then whine about my not respecting you enough.

I do not mean, by treating my arguments with respect, that you accept them or consider them to be well thought out. I don't mind if you disagree with me, and I positively enjoy being shown where I have made mistakes. What I don't accept is someone lying about what I said and then demanding that I respect them for doing so.

[mikeh]

 Codo, on 2014-April-14, 05:39, said:

Well Stephanie wrote "all", so no, my comprehensive skills are not challenged. She made simply a statement which can be proven false.

But maybe we will find some things we really agree on:
Luckily nobody I knows takes the Holy Book as a simple: How to live a life. But why should we? Someone just had to read and understand the text to get to know that this would be impossible. As I wrote to Winston, there are even disputing claims in different parts. And you can see quite a big change during the times, espacially from the ancient to the new testamony. So, if you agree -say- with the statements from the ancient parts, you are in serious trouble with the new one. E.g. in theancient it says an eye for an eye, in the new "turn the other cheek". Very difficult to follow both at the same time. So, when the Bible was in any way intentional, it was surely not made as a simple signpost but as a descirption of history and some rules to think about.

So the question is: Who tells you - or fanatic Bible belivers- that a holy book must be a guide for your live?

I think that you may respect the ancient philosophers like Aristoteles and Platon. Do you really think that they wrote the eternal and final truth? I do not. Philosophy did develop. As did mathematics, as did well nearly anything. So why do you think that Christians should stick to the Bible like a novice driver to the road traffic act without the ability to think?

So besides your opinion that people like me lost the ability to think critical- any evidence?
Maybe we can agree that fanatics cannot think critically anymore- they would take the Bible/Choran/Hubbard/Dawkings litterally without thinking about it...

I agree with your point that only fundamentalists claim to believe that their holy book is inerrant. I don't know enough about the Koran to assert that it is internally inconsistent but, having been raised catholic, I can say with certainty that it is impossible to comply with everything in the Bible, as you observed.

However, the point that some of us have been trying to make is that all religious believers have faith that there is a god...moreover, each has his or her own version of that god, and many (but not all) assert that one needs to believe in their flavour of god in order to be saved. It is this belief in a god that has created humans as special and that will allow us to live on beyond death (in heaven, hell, or some other version of an afterlife) that gives shelter to the fundies, by making them part of a generally accepted worldview. They become not aberrant deluded freaks but merely more extreme members of the faith-based community. Indeed, the faith-based community is so broad that even identifying where moderate belief ends and fanaticism begins is difficult. In this forum, for example, we have Rik so bent out of shape over my posts that we find Rik describing the beliefs of the leaders of the RC Church as 'extreme' (admittedly, as 'extreme within the church').

[mikeh]

 Codo, on 2014-April-14, 05:39, said:

So besides your opinion that people like me lost the ability to think critical- any evidence?

What evidence, beyond the bible, is there for the existence of the Jesus depicted in the bible?

In particular, what evidence is there in support of the miracles he is said to have performed, and the resurrection, to name the most implausible of the biblical tales describing Jesus?

I accept, by the way, that there were many messianic cults in Israel at about the correct time. I accept that many of the historical facts asserted in the NT are correct....for example, Pontius Pilate and King Herod.

However, the fact that a tale includes some verifiable facts doesn't assist in determining the truth of other matters described in the text. Any reader of historical fiction knows that .

Furthermore, archeology shows, convincingly in the opinion of this layperson, that the stories of the wanderings, wars, and genocides in which the Jews participated are ahistorical, so why accept the NT at face value? We know that the ability to create fiction long-predated the modern novel!

If Jesus didn't exist, or perhaps more accurately, if the Jesus who became, post-death, the Jesus we now 'know', wasn't in actuality a performer of miracles and wasn't resurrected, and so on, where does that leave Christianity?

You say, correctly, that modern Christians do not see the Bible as inerrant (even those who say they do, don't in practice).

Can you identify the changes in the attitudes towards the Gospels since the early 6th century? Why is it that you, today, have a privileged, more correct view of the meaning of the Gospels, and their guide to proper living and moral virtue, than did the believer in 1014, or 1514?

Leaving that to one side, what evidence is there that a god closely modeled on human psychology created the universe with us in mind?

How plausible is it that god set in motion the cosmos of hundreds of billions of galaxies, with hundreds of billions of stars per galaxy, 13.8 billion years ago, and then after our tiny planet was formed almost 9 billion years into the timeline of the universe, waited another 4.5 billion years to see humans evolve and THEN decided that finally a form of life had evolved that was suitable for religious indoctrination....that was capable of sin...that needed salvation from sin....and that that salvation was going to be attained by that god insubstantiating itself as a human in a small province of Rome, and then, after doing some preaching for a few years, would have itself killed so that it could resurrect itself in secret so that some of its followers could start a church....which church would over the centuries determine that it should bring salvation to others by killing and torturing them.

if you reply that I am not describing your particular form of belief, I hope you accept that I have approximated the basic beliefs of many of your co-religionists (bearing in mind that it is impossible to do justice to any complex idea in so few words as I use here). I also suggest that if you have a more 'new age' version of Christianity, one that makes jesus an incidental figure, or that suggests he really wasn't the son of god, and wasn't sent by his father to redeem us by his sacrifice, or that his relationship was metaphorical, rather than really father-son, then you are not mainstream, and are dangerously close to theism, rather than Christianity. BTW, the notion that theism is correct, in the narrow sense that a god-entity created the universe and thereafter played no role, is far more difficult for atheists to refute than is the traditional god created by men in their own image

I don't doubt that you, and almost all other believers are capable of critical thinking.

I am sure that you have done a lot of it in your life. I don't know what you do for a living, but I am willing to assume that it requires critical thinking, in the sense that you make decisions based on information assumed or known by you to be reliable...to reflect reality.

I assume, for example, that if you become ill, you don't go to a priest or rabbi to cast out the evil demons causing the illness but, instead, go to a doctor who practices evidence based medicine.

I may be wrong there: you may be a believer in homeopathy or reflexology or some other bunk, but even so I would accept that you do know how to evaluate evidence and analyze stories for plausibility.

However, I think the Jesuits got it right when they claimed (and I am paraphrasing) that if one gave them a boy to educate at age 5, they'd own the man. There is also much truth in the saying that the child is father to the man (nowadays, one should say, I think, the child is parent to the adult, but I learned the saying many years ago).

Most people in societies in which religion is prevalent are exposed to religious teaching before they develop the shield made of critical thinking. The acceptance of religious notions as fundamental is instilled BEFORE the child has the ability to doubt what it is being told.

Religious sects count on this. It is fundamental to their success. It is this inculcation of belief before the onset of critical thinking skills that inoculates the belief from later critical examination. I don't doubt that many and maybe most believers do spend a lot of time worrying about their faith, and struggling with some of the obvious contradictions that come to light as one becomes adult, but nevertheless it remains my view that for most the ability to truly step back and re-examine 'why' one believes as one does is very difficult. Almost every discussion I have ever had has the believer retreating into excuses and stories that the believer would ridicule if they were offered up by someone else in a non-religious context.

We don't even need to be sent to Sunday School, or the like. In most western countries, references to god and Christ, etc are ubiquitous. Heck, even I, as died-in-the-wool atheist as I am, will refer to 'god!' or 'Christ!' as an exclamation. We celebrate religious holidays, even when devout Christians deplore the commercialization of them. We have people swear on the bible in court. We have oaths of allegiance. We can't avoid the underlying, pervasive presence of religion, and so it can become not merely omni-present but also largely invisible to the conscious mind...making it even more resistant to critical thinking.

Anyway, that's (part of) how I see it