Is atheism a threat to humanity?

[WhyIsThatSo]

Ever heared of the burden of proof?

No, eyewitness claims aren't considered true "until proven wrong".
Claims that are made without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

Well, dismiss away......and go back to sleep,
I "KNOW" what I have seen,
and , sorry I woke you... ( or tried to )

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Oh, hey Tag.....you must have missed the part about how
"words" are really sound vibrations,
and how "vibration" is the basic building block of energy and matter.

I haven't. I laughed with it. It was the only reply it deserved as it is a patently absurd comparision to make.

Which means "sound vibration" ( words ), when used properly,
can be used to manifest a solid object ( matter ) out of thin air.

No.

But you won't find that in "science class".....naturally

Because it's absurd.
Science classes tend to stay clear of patently absurd nonsense.

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

Another reply completely irrelevant in context of the post you are replying to.

Sorry, it's not my fault that you have to put another "animal" in your gut, and let it rot, to "feed" you,
then go "dump" what's left of the "foul" remains.
And hope it doesn't kill you, (disease) in the process..

Maybe that's why we need to bath, because this "animal flesh" is rotting too, all the time .
And it stinks, if we don't pamper it.

I could go on, but what's the point. I think you enjoy being an "animal",
BUT, I can assure you that, some of us don't,
and would rather be a True Human Being .

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Well, dismiss away......

I will. Unless you come up with some actual evidence.

You dismiss bare claims without evidence as well, you know...
Here, I'll show you:

An undetectable dragon is about to eat you unless you immediatly wrap yourself in tin foil!!! I know this, because the all knowing ghost that never lies just told me...

I'll bet a million dollars that you won't be wrapping yourself in tinfoil to protect yourself from this dragon.

Amirite?
Ask yourself why you don't accept my claim.

I "KNOW" what I have seen,

So do alien abductees.
So do bigfoot and lochness monster spotters.
So does the guy in room 1225 of the psychiatric ward.

In other words, you're confusing "knowing" with "believing" again.

and , sorry I woke you... ( or tried to )

You didn't try very hard.
All it takes is some solid evidence.

Bare claims won't do. Just like the bare claim of the dragon that is going to eat you won't do.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Sorry, it's not my fault that you have to put another "animal" in your gut, and let it rot, to "feed" you,
then go "dump" what's left of the "foul" remains.
And hope it doesn't kill you, (disease) in the process..

Maybe that's why we need to bath, because this "animal flesh" is rotting too, all the time .
And it stinks, if we don't pamper it.

I could go on, but what's the point. I think you enjoy being an "animal",
BUT, I can assure you that, some of us don't,
and would rather be a True Human Being .

yawn.

Getting boring real fast now.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Annoying, isn't it?

@mikkel_the_dane you see, I'm not the only one noticing this. As soon as you see a reference to science, no matter what the actual conversation is about, you jump in there like a hawk and muddy the waters into irrelevancy for absolutely no reason at all.

Here is the game.
What is humanity?
You can't answer that with reason, logic and science alone.

So when someone to the effect of philosophical naturalism and what not, start using science and philosophical naturalism, I butt in. Science is methodological naturalism and science doesn't prove what reality really is.
It tell us how it works using methodological naturalism and that is not the same as what reality really is. The later is philosophy and that has been answered long ago. That is unknown for what objective reality is as independent of the mind.

Do I overdo it sometimes, yes. Do I some times catch one of you doing philosophical naturalism without knowing it? Maybe.
So clarify what you mean and I will try to point out how you, if you indeed have so, have mixed science and philosophy.

So if somebody with absolute certain starts with the Big Bang and claim that is in effect a truth that can't be questioned or that biological evolution is equally true, I butt in.
Reality is not that simple in practice.

Science:
"Science, since people must do it, is a socially embedded activity. It progresses by hunch, vision, and intuition. Much of its change through time does not record a closer approach to absolute truth, but the alteration of cultural contexts that influence it so strongly. Facts are not pure and unsullied bits of information; culture also influences what we see and how we see it. Theories, moreover, are not inexorable inductions from facts. The most creative theories are often imaginative visions imposed upon facts; the source of imagination is also strongly cultural. [Stephen Jay Gould, introduction to "The Mismeasure of Man," 1981]"
Read it and learn to understand that we are all a part of that.
Science is in part narrative that works. Nothing more, nothing less.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

yawn.

Getting boring real fast now.

I will. Unless you come up with some actual evidence.

You dismiss bare claims without evidence as well, you know...
Here, I'll show you:

An undetectable dragon is about to eat you unless you immediatly wrap yourself in tin foil!!! I know this, because the all knowing ghost that never lies just told me...

I'll bet a million dollars that you won't be wrapping yourself in tinfoil to protect yourself from this dragon.

Amirite?
Ask yourself why you don't accept my claim.



So do alien abductees.
So do bigfoot and lochness monster spotters.
So does the guy in room 1225 of the psychiatric ward.

In other words, you're confusing "knowing" with "believing" again.



You didn't try very hard.
All it takes is some solid evidence.

Bare claims won't do. Just like the bare claim of the dragon that is going to eat you won't do.

Just so you know :

In the eyes of this universe, your puny "scientific knowledge" is viewed as "circumstantial" AT BEST.
There are plenty of innocent souls in prison right now because of "evidence".

"evidence " is only used to "prove" an allegation, or in this case a "hypothesis "
and has NOTHING to do with finding "facts" (TRUTH).

TRUE seekers are fact (TRUTH) finders......not intellectual idiots in white coats.

 

[McBell]

But you won't find that in "science class".....naturally

Only because big steaming piles of bull **** presented as fact is not science.

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

Only because big steaming piles of bull **** presented as fact is not science.

That's correct.....it's way beyond your little "science",
"science" is for babies...

 

[firedragon]

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of religions.
Most of them come with moral frameworks / imperatives / duties / whatever you wish to call it.

At best, only one of them is what it claims to be (ie: coming from gods and/or accurate descriptions of gods/the supernatural). All others then must be human inventions.

We know for absolute fact that humans invent religions. We've literally observed it happening.

So we actually have demonstrable and observed precedents of humans doing this.
But we have no such demonstrable precedents of gods or angeles or whatnot doing this.

Since all religions tend to make the same type of claims, the most likely outcome is that all are human inventions.

I could invoke Occam's razor as well here.
There's no need to assume supernatural entities as the source of any religion, because we already have a perfectly decent candidate which has already been observed to invent religions: humans.


I could go on for quite a while in more detail. But imho, the above is already more then enough to support my statement that religions (and therefor also the moral values contained therein) are of human origin.

Thats not evidence.

But thanks. Peace.

 

[ratiocinator]

Well, eye witnesses can make such claims......
then it's up to you to prove them wrong.

Well it's not as if you've produced eye witnesses, or, for that matter, made any coherent claims for them to back up. All you've done is blundered your way though some basic pop-science mistakes and made some rather vague and unsupported assertions.

Added to which, eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable and no, the burden of proof is still down to you. You need, at the very least, to produce these witnesses and say why we should regard them as credible.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Please, don't take my word for it. Find out for yourself.
then you may understand WHY this world is full of "animals", of every sort imaginable.

even the "human" one (animal).

I already knew we are animals and part of life just as much as all other life. It seems to me that many of the religious are the ones trying to assert humans as to be unique and special rather than being related to all others by evolution - not me.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I don't have any "concept".....I'm just stating what it (evil)...IS

No. Still an assertion.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Thats not evidence.

But thanks. Peace.

Off course it is evidence.

Humans factually and demonstrably invent religions.
No supernatural entity, gods or otherwise, have been demonstrated to even exist - let alone communicate religions.

So we HAVE evidence of humans inventing religions.
We have NO evidence of supernatural entities introducing religions.

So since we KNOW for a FACT that humans invent religions, the rational conclusion here is that religions are of human origins. There simply is no other candidate.

How is that not evidence?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Here is the game.
What is humanity?
You can't answer that with reason, logic and science alone.

So when someone to the effect of philosophical naturalism and what not, start using science and philosophical naturalism, I butt in. Science is methodological naturalism and science doesn't prove what reality really is.
It tell us how it works using methodological naturalism and that is not the same as what reality really is. The later is philosophy and that has been answered long ago. That is unknown for what objective reality is as independent of the mind.

Do I overdo it sometimes, yes. Do I some times catch one of you doing philosophical naturalism without knowing it? Maybe.
So clarify what you mean and I will try to point out how you, if you indeed have so, have mixed science and philosophy.

So if somebody with absolute certain starts with the Big Bang and claim that is in effect a truth that can't be questioned or that biological evolution is equally true, I butt in.
Reality is not that simple in practice.

Science:
"Science, since people must do it, is a socially embedded activity. It progresses by hunch, vision, and intuition. Much of its change through time does not record a closer approach to absolute truth, but the alteration of cultural contexts that influence it so strongly. Facts are not pure and unsullied bits of information; culture also influences what we see and how we see it. Theories, moreover, are not inexorable inductions from facts. The most creative theories are often imaginative visions imposed upon facts; the source of imagination is also strongly cultural. [Stephen Jay Gould, introduction to "The Mismeasure of Man," 1981]"
Read it and learn to understand that we are all a part of that.
Science is in part narrative that works. Nothing more, nothing less.

Regards
Mikkel

And even in reply to that particular post where this behaviour is brought to your attention, you once again fall back to this annoying habbit of yours, for no reason, stating the obvious in the most ambiguous of ways, seemingly with as only goal to stir the pot.

It's starting to look quite trollish.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Just so you know :

In the eyes of this universe, your puny "scientific knowledge" is viewed as "circumstantial" AT BEST.
There are plenty of innocent souls in prison right now because of "evidence".

"evidence " is only used to "prove" an allegation, or in this case a "hypothesis "
and has NOTHING to do with finding "facts" (TRUTH).

TRUE seekers are fact (TRUTH) finders......not intellectual idiots in white coats.

So, did you wrap yourself in tinfoil?

Why not?

Could it perhaps be because you had no rational reason to accept the dragon claim, due to it having no evidence?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

As stated......you prove your falsehood as to your "purpose" for living,
by continuing to do so.

And, as stated, that is demonstrably false.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of religions.
Most of them come with moral frameworks / imperatives / duties / whatever you wish to call it.

At best, only one of them is what it claims to be (ie: coming from gods and/or accurate descriptions of gods/the supernatural). All others then must be human inventions.

We know for absolute fact that humans invent religions. We've literally observed it happening.

So we actually have demonstrable and observed precedents of humans doing this.
But we have no such demonstrable precedents of gods or angeles or whatnot doing this.

Since all religions tend to make the same type of claims, the most likely outcome is that all are human inventions.

I could invoke Occam's razor as well here.
There's no need to assume supernatural entities as the source of any religion, because we already have a perfectly decent candidate which has already been observed to invent religions: humans.


I could go on for quite a while in more detail. But imho, the above is already more then enough to support my statement that religions (and therefor also the moral values contained therein) are of human origin.

And you are doing it again. Stop using reason, logic and science, where they don't work.
Now when you are done reading and have used critical thinking and rational analysis, you can make a reasoned argument, if you have one. I have checked this kind of thinking before and it doesn't work as somebody believe it does.

So here we go. This is how the universe apparently works and is a conditional in time and space.

So here is naturalism in its most rational version.
Nobody (remember apparently) controls reality. Reality controls us all and free will, purpose, meaning, that it makes sense and that the "I" is an actual I are all illusions. All of that subjectivity, which you also use, is not real.
It is called eliminative naturalism in effect. It works this way. Only that, which can be strictly observed, is real.
If something matters to you or me, or it makes sense to one of us, it is not real, because it can't be observed using science.

There are a category of words not limited to religion, which are nothing but observable physical, chemical and biological process in a given brain. Other words are about other such processes as say e.g. gravity. The word "gravity is about gravity and its observable effects. E.g. the words "it doesn't make sense to me" are nothing but physical, chemical and biological process in a given brain.
In this model there are 2 categories of observational data: Processes in brains and other process as for the some processes in time and space: The physical, chemical and biological processes as relevant.
All these words, which are in effect brain constructs, are not real as anything else than physical, chemical and biological processes.
E.g. free will is nothing but not free will. It is caused by physical, chemical and biological processes and there is no free will. It is an illusion.

Now remember that this is only apparently so and maybe not be really real. I have in fact made an error in thinking and I know, what the error is. But this model is relevant in order for me to explain your post and your "error" in thinking.
So the actual answer to your post will come later, but it is related to this post.

So what is my error in thinking? Where above in this text did I on purpose commit an error?

Regards
Mikkel

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

And you are doing it again. Stop using reason, logic and science, where they don't work.

It seems to me to be working perfectly fine for the purpose that I'm using it, which concerns finding out what the most likely source of religions is concidering what we know about the topic.

Now when you are done reading and have used critical thinking and rational analysis, you can make a reasoned argument, if you have one. I have checked this kind of thinking before and it doesn't work as somebody believe it does.

Please point out specifically which part of my post you have a problem with and why.

So here we go. This is how the universe apparently works and is a conditional in time and space.

So here is naturalism in its most rational version.
Nobody (remember apparently) controls reality. Reality controls us all and free will, purpose, meaning, that it makes sense and that the "I" is an actual I are all illusions. All of that subjectivity, which you also use, is not real.
It is called eliminative naturalism in effect. It works this way. Only that, which can be strictly observed, is real.
If something matters to you or me, or it makes sense to one of us, it is not real, because it can't be observed using science.

There are a category of words not limited to religion, which are nothing but observable physical, chemical and biological process in a given brain. Other words are about other such processes as say e.g. gravity. The word "gravity is about gravity and its observable effects. E.g. the words "it doesn't make sense to me" are nothing but physical, chemical and biological process in a given brain.
In this model there are 2 categories of observational data: Processes in brains and other process as for the some processes in time and space: The physical, chemical and biological processes as relevant.
All these words, which are in effect brain constructs, are not real as anything else than physical, chemical and biological processes.
E.g. free will is nothing but not free will. It is caused by physical, chemical and biological processes and there is no free will. It is an illusion.

Now remember that this is only apparently so and maybe not be really real. I have in fact made an error in thinking and I know, what the error is. But this model is relevant in order for me to explain your post and your "error" in thinking.
So the actual answer to your post will come later, but it is related to this post.

So what is my error in thinking? Where above in this text did I on purpose commit an error?

None of this is addressing the point being made in the post you are responding to. And that point concerns the question of what the most likely origins of religions are, considering what we know about religions and humans.

If you have a problem with the argument in the post, then please address the actual argument. Your response shouldn't be mentioning things like chemistry and gravity and biological processes and whatnot, as none of those have anything to do with the actual argument.

Here it is again for you:
1. we have verifiable evidence, proof and precedents of humans inventing religions
2. we have no such thing of religions being started or invented by anything other then humans
3. we have no verifiable evidence of anything supernatural whatsoever existing

Therefor, when asked if the most likely source of religion is human or supernatural, the rational answer is that it is most likely of human origin. Because that's the only thing we have evidence of. Proof even.

Humans are KNOWN to have invented religions.

So we have a perfectly fine candidate, with proven ability of being able to invent religions, as the originator of religion. So indeed, the most likely origins of religion, is the human mind.


Please point out specifically with which part you disagree and explain why. In plain english please.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...
Please point out specifically with which part you disagree and explain why. In plain english please.

Oaky

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of religions.
Most of them come with moral frameworks / imperatives / duties / whatever you wish to call it.

At best, only one of them is what it claims to be (ie: coming from gods and/or accurate descriptions of gods/the supernatural). All others then must be human inventions.

We know for absolute fact that humans invent religions. We've literally observed it happening.

So we actually have demonstrable and observed precedents of humans doing this.
But we have no such demonstrable precedents of gods or angeles or whatnot doing this.

Since all religions tend to make the same type of claims, the most likely outcome is that all are human inventions.

I could invoke Occam's razor as well here.
There's no need to assume supernatural entities as the source of any religion, because we already have a perfectly decent candidate which has already been observed to invent religions: humans.


I could go on for quite a while in more detail. But imho, the above is already more then enough to support my statement that religions (and therefor also the moral values contained therein) are of human origin.

"At best, only one of them is what it claims to be (ie: coming from gods and/or accurate descriptions of gods/the supernatural). All others then must be human inventions."

What are you missing here?
You are missing that in order for your argument to work, gods can't be contradictory. So how do you know that? How do you know anything about gods as gods if that is unknowable? Or can you prove that gods don't exist?

Answer that please.