[the saint]

Gerben42, on Mar 21 2006, 12:29 PM, said:

The worst invention of all time is Religion.

Definitely.

[AceOfHeart]

Humans are God's worst invention

[Free]

Worst invention EVER: monogamy...

[the saint]

AceOfHeart, on Mar 26 2006, 02:15 PM, said:

Humans are God's worst invention

Not if you don't believe in God.

[david_c]

sceptic, on Mar 26 2006, 05:48 PM, said:

Religion was invented to supress human nature and control the masses

On the contrary: religion is a part of human nature. And so it does not make sense IMO to say that religion is an invention. You could perhaps argue that any particular example of a religion is an invention.

[Gerben42]

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religion is a part of human nature

How do you mean that? I am not religious in any way. Does that mean I am not human?

There is not much known about the genes that cause religiousness but I once read that they found one. I wonder how that works, though...

[david_c]

Gerben42, on Mar 26 2006, 07:24 PM, said:

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religion is a part of human nature

How do you mean that? I am not religious in any way. Does that mean I am not human?

There is clearly something in human nature which causes some people to believe such things.

[Badmonster]

david_c, on Mar 26 2006, 04:32 PM, said:

Gerben42, on Mar 26 2006, 07:24 PM, said:

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religion is a part of human nature

How do you mean that? I am not religious in any way. Does that mean I am not human?

There is clearly something in human nature which causes some people to be taken in by religious teachings.

Sentience?

[luke warm]

Badmonster, on Mar 26 2006, 04:47 PM, said:

Sentience?

excellent word... belief in God is not something that has to be taught, imo... religion is not what i mean, the tenets of any particular religion can be taught, and learned... but given a sound (ie, not damaged) mind, it's my belief that a person, if left to his own meditations, has to unlearn a belief in God...

[david_c]

Badmonster, on Mar 26 2006, 10:47 PM, said:

Sentience?

Well, I'm ashamed to say I had to look that one up in the dictionary, but yes, that seems to be the right word for it.

[I've now edited my previous post: the original version should not have existed.]

[helene_t]

david_c, on Mar 26 2006, 07:22 PM, said:

religion is a part of human nature. And so it does not make sense IMO to say that religion is an invention. You could perhaps argue that any particular example of a religion is an invention.

I tend to agree with that: the fact that all cultures have some kind of religion or at least cultural spirituality (or whatever one should call it) can't be a coincidense. But religion has many faces and not all may be part of human nature:
1 The belief is something stronger and/or moraly superior (relative to humans)
2 Institutionalized religion (that grants spiritual authority and thereby power to certain persons)
3 The belief in whatever one has to believe in order to belong to whatever group one wants to belong to

Pesonally, I think I am susceptible to both 1 and 3 and had to de-learn it. 2 is something I have always found revolting, even when I was young and strongly religious (I believed in Marxism, not a joke).

[david_c]

sceptic, on Mar 27 2006, 10:45 AM, said:

Religion is not part of human nature, man may have a tendancy to go along with something that is sugested to him, that may be human nature (follow blindly like a sheep) but I really don't think we are born with any religious beliefs.

That's not quite the same thing. Note that language is a part of human nature despite the fact that babies are not born talking. I hope this is a helpful analogy.

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the answer to this "There is clearly something in human nature which causes some people to believe such things. " is mans curiosity and the need to have an answer

There must be more to it than that. I think you are missing this thing called "sentience". Of all the aspects of human nature which go in to making religion possible, this is the most interesting and important: humans (some of them, at least) have this ability to be absolutely convinced that they know the truth, just by relying on some inner feeling. I have a theory that my own atheism is explainable in the same way - I am absolutely convinced that there is no such thing as a god; the fact that millions of people disagree doesn't worry me in the slightest, because I know I'm right, and I don't care that I will never be able to prove it to anyone. I suspect that these feelings are caused by the same aspect of my nature which allows devout believers to proclaim with abolute certainty that god does exist. Unlike Gerben, I would never say, "I am not religious in any way." I am religiously atheistic.

I used to think that this made my atheism somewhat less arrogant than other people's, as it means that my atheism is just as "irrational" as a belief in god. (I hate it when people like Richard Dawkins talk about other people's beliefs dismissively; this gives atheism a bad name.) But I then realised that in fact I was being supremely arrogant, as I'm saying that not only do I think I'm right, but that I can also explain why it is that everyone else goes wrong.

[luke warm]

sceptic, on Mar 27 2006, 04:45 AM, said:

who believes in Greek gods any more or Norse Gods.. did they disappear. were they there in the first place??

from "greek and norse gods never existed in the first place" we can't get "therefore no God exists"

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when my time comes if I am wrong I am sure he or she will be all forgiving (as I lead a decent sort of life) and if I am right, it won't matter

while forgivness is a major tenet in the, for example, christian religion, one needs to ask in order to receive.. there may come a time when the asking is no longer possible

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Religion is not part of human nature, man may have a tendancy to go along with something that is sugested to him, that may be human nature (follow blindly like a sheep but I really don't think we are born with any religious beliefs.

my previous post touched on this.. without going into a lot of detail, i honestly believe that a person has to deny his senses (ie, unlearn) to believe there is no creator

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We may have questions that religion seems to answer for lack of any substantial proof exsisting. i.e how did we get here or how did we come into exsistence.  IMHO someone made up Religion to control the masses, in a time when there were not substantilal explainations for things, i.e raingods, sungods al powerful deities

the big bang theory was a boon to religious philosophers because it gave them, finally, a chance to argue in a logical manner the existence of God... the old cause and effect thingy... btw, concerning your last sentence, are there now 'substantial explanations for things'?

[Sigi_BC84]

I also disagree with those who say religion is an invention. I'd like to add that one should not confuse religion, theism and spirituality. Also, too often the term "religion" is used when actually some church or organization is meant.

As far as I can see, spirituality is deeply rooted within humans. You also do not have to believe in God (or in anything, for that matter) in order to be genuinely spiritual. Atheism and spirituality are not opposed to each other.

Furthermore, intelligence and reason does not collide with spirituality in any way (you can see them as orthogonal if you will).

Some of the posters here seem to have brushed religion/spirituality aside at some point because it might have interfered with their idea of rationality or being mature. I don't think this is necessary.

Somebody I know (who is a total nerd but quite smart) once said that "an intelligent person cannot be religious". This is, in fact, complete nonsense.

--Sigi

(For what its worth, I don't believe in God but neither in Materialism.)

[Sigi_BC84]

david_c, on Mar 27 2006, 12:49 PM, said:

Unlike Gerben, I would never say, "I am not religious in any way." I am religiously atheistic.

This is what I meant by "spiritual". Believing in god (or a plurality of gods, that does not matter here) means that you assume the existence of a supernatural being, a person, a separate entity. Being authentically religious does not require such a belief.

--Sigi

[Gerben42]

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Somebody I know (who is a total nerd but quite smart) once said that "an intelligent person cannot be religious". This is, in fact, complete nonsense.

He probably meant to say something more personal like "I can't understand how these supposedly intelligent people can believe in something so vague like God". As usual admitting you cannot understand something is hard.

For me it's different. I can understand why people would be religious but would never have religious beliefs myself. It just doesn't work for me. I do not "believe". I think the Big Bang theory is the best theory to describe the early universe because it fits the observations, whereas "creation by some deity" doesn't make any sense to me. But I don't believe in it.

[Sigi_BC84]

luke warm, on Mar 27 2006, 12:51 PM, said:

sceptic, on Mar 27 2006, 04:45 AM, said:

who believes in Greek gods any more or Norse Gods.. did they disappear. were they there in the first place??

from "greek and norse gods never existed in the first place" we can't get "therefore no God exists"

Another two of my cents on this one.

For the Greeks, Vikings, Mayans etc., their gods did exist. What do we know, maybe they really existed and died when people stopped worshipping them (yeah, I know I start to sound like a nutcase now). The Tibetans, arguably the spiritually most advanced culture on Earth, take the existence of gods for granted. Only, for them they are not essentially different from humans or any sentient being, just living on a different plane, and even mortal.

Now, being raised and educated in a materialistic culture adhering to the scientific method, of course we have to rebut such ideas. The "spiritual method" is incompatible with the scientific method (as of yet).

For me, modern physics has long since turned into an esoteric discipline. Nuclear physics tells you that everything is composed to 99,999% of nothing. Quantum physics proposes theories that are not more against all intuition than believing in God against the intuition of atheists. I don't see physicists proclaiming that the smallest particle has been found and that search is over -- while being totally incomprehensible to almost anyone they still come up with more and more theories which get more bizarre every day.

I don't see why anybody should be ashamed for believing in supernatural beings in such a world.

I'm hoping you get my point.

--Sigi

[Sigi_BC84]

Gerben42, on Mar 27 2006, 01:29 PM, said:

I think the Big Bang theory is the best theory to describe the early universe because it fits the observations, whereas "creation by some deity" doesn't make any sense to me. But I don't believe in it.

Who (or what) created the Big Bang, then? This is a question with which one could be concerned as well, and it's not incompatible with trying to explain everything since the Big Bang.

I like the approach that Buddhism takes in this regard, saying that there is no beginning, only an endless chain of cause and effect stretching into eternity in both directions. This is very logical, matches our observations and does not need a supernatural being.

--Sigi

[Gerben42]

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For the Greeks, Vikings, Mayans etc., their gods did exist. What do we know, maybe they really existed and died when people stopped worshipping them (yeah, I know I start to sound like a nutcase now)

Read "Small Gods" by Terry Pratchett. Gods in the Disc World only have power if people believe in them.

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For me, modern physics has long since turned into an esoteric discipline. Nuclear physics tells you that everything is composed to 99,999% of nothing. Quantum physics proposes theories that are not more against all intuition than believing in God against the intuition of atheists.

Physics is a way to describe the universe around us. This is useful because when we get an accurate description we can use this knowledge to our advantage. If you knock your bidding box from the table, physics will tell you how long it will take to fall on the floor and with what force the bidding cards are thrown out of the box when it hits.

Even though some of these theories may seem esoteric they are the best description humanity can come up with to base future predicitions on. The idea of a refrigerator cannot mature without thermodynamics, the elevator not without classical mechanics and the television not without quantum mechanics.

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There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly
what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly
disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and
inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has
already happened.

-- Douglas Adams

[Gerben42]

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Who (or what) created the Big Bang, then? This is a question with which one could be concerned as well, and it's not incompatible with trying to explain everything since the Big Bang.

One could be concerned with this or be honest with oneself and realize that there is no way to find out and as such irrational to make any assumptions about this. The only thing that one can say is that if all this never happened, there would be no one asking the question.