Letters to the Editor
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Here's my barber pal, Billy Occam
Then the countless mystics and those who have had profound mystical experiences are just delusional aren't they? Except for the pesky fact they're so damn consistent-throughout **centuries** and across all cultures.
Consistency would be expected with a neurological phenomenon. Just sayin'.
BTW, delusion has nothing to do with such an experience per se--that would be more in the line of a hallucination. Delusion would be when you believe something is true that is demonstrably false. Believing in God, or any supernatural force, energy, or being, is thus not delusional, since the existence of such cannot be proved or disproved. Believing that you can fly by flapping your arms, that you are the King of Atlantis, or that you can beat the house at craps is delusional.
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nitpicking
in·cre·du·li·ty
–noun the quality or state of being incredulous; inability or unwillingness to believe.
—Synonyms disbelief, skepticism, doubt.
—Antonyms faith.
In the 4th paragraph of this article, I think the author meant to type 'credulity' rather than its opposite.
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can't we agree to disagree?
Seems like there isn't enough evidence on either side for a conviction! It bothers me that many of the people using science to back their claim to there (essentially) being no god/supernatural force often start out with such a strong bias that they are almost certainally BOUND to find what they are looking for. The same is true of the 'believers' camp, but that's been pointed out for years.
Making a scientific argument to support your own personally held beliefs and biases will almost always lead to a flawed 'expirament' that suprise suprise, supports what you allready 'knew' to be 'fact'.
Many aspects of religion are total bunk, and have been shown to be so. However the big questions - is there a god, what is the purpose of life, is there an afterlife - remain valid questions that science has failed to adequately rule on one way or the other.
I say, keep looking - to both the aethists and the god-camp.
You never know... maybe in the future we'll find a way to artifically create the 'hard wiring' that the religious call a 'soul' and save it... its not impossible. Nothing is.
I think the picture is just too big for a book like Wolpert's to wrap up into a neat little box.
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This is getting tiresome...
Another day, another article/review in Salon advancing the daring proposition that religious belief is either a biological accident, a pernicious meme holding back the advance of civilization, or just plain stupid. What a surprise!
Now the committed atheists (apparently most of the letter writers) and the believers (a small yet vocal minority) can argue about it yet again for a couple of days. No one on either side is going to be convinced. I'll give credit to the readership of Salon that the letters on these articles are, at least, much more thoughtful than those posted when more "mainstream" publications run articles that touch the issue of religion. (Go back and look at the letters when Time ran an article on the "Jesus Tomb" silliness, for example.)
This article at least advances an interesting theory rather than the ususal set-piece arguement in which selected evidence from science and history is used to demolish a strawman based on the most narrow-minded, ignorant manifestations of religious practice. I should have posted this after the article on Hitchens's book - it would have been much more appropriate there.
For the record, I should point out that I'm a believer (Roman Catholic, of all things). I also am a liberal, a registered Democrat, have a graduate degree in engineering, understand that the universe is 14 BY+ old, get moved to rage when ignorant fundies try to get creationism taught in schools and think that the political agenda of the evangelical right is a threat to our democracy.
Now the atheists can respond and tell me I'm deluded. If any religious right types read this site, they'd tell me I was going to hell because I don't vote Republican. No one wins in this debate...
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Cause and effect requires faith
If religion didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent it.
If people really believed in heaven, they wouldn't wear their seat belts. Why put effort into preventing entry into paradise?
The supernatural was invented because religion minus miracles = philosophy. And philosophy doesn't provided the social glue needed for wars of conquest.
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hmm
If you don't like this debate then why participate in it? I understand that people disagree with what's in the article, but you really do your beliefs a disservice if you attack the debate and not ideas in the debate. It's like actively finding people who disagree with you to show them your tongue while your hands are blocking your ears.
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My suggestion
If you want to know the origin of religion I suggest you read Julian Jayne's "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Carmel Mind".
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I agree with the nuts on this one
Never thought I'd agree with the spiritual/religious nuts who post to Salon, but...
I don't even have to read this article (which I haven't) to know that there's nothing new that I haven't seen 100 times on Salon's pages before. This debate has been played to death already. Nobody's got anything new or interesting to say.
Call me when you find some actual evidence of a God- even Thor's hammer would do. Also, drop me an email if an atheist finally breaks through and convinces religionists that they're living a fantasy.
Actually- scratch that. I'd even settle for an article exposing Richard Dawkins as a closet Hindu, or revealing that Pat Robertson does covert research into genetics.
See- I'm not so hard to please.
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What Is This? Atheist of the Week Club?
Another bonehead intellectual with a closed mind whose ego will not allow him to consider that there might be a limit to what his own brain can encompass,
Because anything outside their own experience is "supernatural," members of the church of atheism put such labels on the experiences and knowledge of others.
Why do these evangelists feel compelled to spout off about this universe of reason - every secret of which they will someday master - in which they dwell? I find it really boring and small.
Atheism is the church of the no-god belief system. They proclaim,"It's a FACT!" Just like other religious fanatics proclaim the facts of Jesus or Allah or the golden tablets or what or whomever.
But it isn't a fact. They want it to be a fact. They believe it is a fact. But you cannot prove there is no God, whatever label or word you want to use for God. Perhaps we have such cells in our brains so that we can always tap into the truth of the matter, should we so desire.
I know some fine, upstanding human beings who describe themselves as atheists. Good people. I don't care. It's fine if they want to belong to that church.
But why do we have to hear about it every week here?