Where that proof religion is a net negative?

I disagree, since it was not God's intention that everyone be confused, and simply pointing at confusion is in itself, not proof of that. I've pointed out several reasons why people may have a different interpretation, such as benefiting from a specific view. God cannot be blamed for every case of misinterpretation, since some of these are clearly for reasons other than general misunderstanding.

If you have reasons to believe that something is hidden, then I'll hear them out. The authors of the bible have at several points alluded to the scriptures containing mysteries, including Christ himself. If you disagree with it, that's one thing, but I'm not just making this up to suit my argument, it's a biblical principle.

Are you aware that not all Muslims see eye-to-eye? Take the terrorist attacks of 9-11, do you think that this was accepted by all Muslims?

This aside, accepting a certain text is not necessarily, especially in this case, relevant to the actual text, but more to do with the people. Jews, for instance, believe the Torah to be literal. How can that be, since it's the same OT that Christians have trouble distinguishing from literal vs figurative? See my point? It's not always about the words themselves, there are cultural elements at play.

I accept this as a fair deduction from your pov, but remember that you don't have access to everyone's experience. Perhaps God has shown some of these things to people on a personal level, and you are simply not aware of it.

Yes, God could reveal himself to you, and then you may change your mind. There is also the possibility that you may eventually acknowledge that my beliefs can be justified, even if you don't believe that I am right.

I think that you commit these "fallacies" in a general sense, like we all do, because it's easier to make sense of the world that way. Things like, how do you know? How do you know you can have certainty? Why do we conclude that the universe is intelligible? Philosophically speaking, we all assume a great deal to make sense of things, but it's not a given.

Im pretty sure you have already admitted that you DO have a belief you cant provide proof for, eg the belief that religion is a net negative, and you have clung to that belief even when shown that you have no proof for it, or cant prove it. You have also said

this sounds like a belief that you dont have proof for.

Not saying this is bad, just that I dont think you can claim that all your beliefs are totally justified and proven.

Well hold on, there are explanations for these things which he could go into if he really thought about it. The idea that being nice to people because you would want someone to be nice to you releases endorphins in your brain that makes you feel good, or that you feel that will conduct yourself in a manner that results in associations with likeminded people that result in you being treated well, etc. There's no faith based in the "golden rule", you just have to think about it deeply enough.

Are you saying that the golden rule makes sense, and is therefore right?

so "I believe this is true because believing it releases endorphins" is a good justification for a belief?

It's not a 'belief' in the way that NR believes in god or the Romans believed in Jupiter. It's more a case of I'd be surprised if it wasn't true because I can observe with my own eyes the misery and suffering that religion causes, I can see it on the news every night, but as Zumby points out it would be difficult to quantify precisely.

Not at all, it's just a feeling and I'm not arguing that it's right or wrong or even that it's real. I'm just pointing out that what we generally accept as a 'good' way to behave is something I do without needing to believe in divine reward or punishment or that there must be a divine source for those moral 'rules', I do it because it feels good.

Ummm, yes it is.


You have explicitly admitted on this forum that you cannot prove it( cant be bothered to find the post where you said it).



I dont think you can claim that all your beliefs are totally justified and proven

Ummmm no it's not. There is measurable evidence of the 'good' that religion can do and there is measurable evidence of the 'bad'. These things can be demonstrated and quantified.

Now, how is that similar to a belief in a deity? Please tell me what the evidence is and how you would measure it.

lol? I can't 'prove' that their are more ants on our planet than termites either, does that mean that it's the same 'not being able to prove' as not being able to prove that god exists?

And I'm not sure how can you say that when you don't know 'all' my beliefs.

At least they agree that it is the literal word of god and therefore unquestionable even they cna't always understand what god meant. Christina otoh have a book that they have no instruction on wrt to taking ti literally or not and they can't even be certain that god inspired it all. It may not even be entirely the word of god and even when it is, you don't know whether or not to take it literally.

Unless you think that this was a mistake on god's part, it was deliberate. I don't believe in your god so I think the only mistake was made by the people who collated the bible, they simply bit off more than they could chew and the result was less than desirable.

Try to imagine this the other way around and all the evidence I could offer you to support something I believe was 'my interpretation of my own personal experiences which you can't ever know or share'. And knowing what we do now about how cognitive biases cause us to misinterpret things all the time.


Not based on the evidence that you've offered so far. I don't think that your belief is justified because I don't think you have good reasons to believe it true. Your interpretations of personal experiences are not good reasons. I'm certainly not relying on my lack of personal experiences (or my faulty interpretation of my experiences) to justify my lack of belief in your god.

Then how have you decided on one specific god out of a choice of thousands?

I'm not sure you understand why the majority of cognitive biases can't be playing a part in my lack of belief. For the main part they cause you to see what is not there, not the other way around. They cause you to see patterns, or meaning and purpose, or design, or a cause/effect relationship where there is in fact none. Cognitive biases could easily explain how your interpretation of your personal experiences is mistaken but they don't explain my lack of belief. That being the case, it's highly questionable judgement on your part to place such trust in them.

Do you accept that beliefs can be true, or untrue? Ie its possible to hold true beliefs, and possible to hold false beliefs? but both are beliefs. Or is it only a belief when its untrue, and "fact" when its true?



You made a claim, that all your beliefs are justified and proven. I have shown you that that claim is not true( and you have admitted yourself that its not true)


I dont need to know all your beliefs. I just need to know that ONE of your beliefs is unjustified or unproven, to show your claim that all your beliefs are justified and proven, to be false.

I'm late for work, so I'll only answer this for now. My point was that the Torah is the same text that the Christians use as part of their OT. It's the same text. How then do the Jews take it literally, that is, don't find it confusing*, while Christians do find it confusing, since they don't all take it literally?

What I'm trying to show you is that it's not ALL about the text itself. There are MANY other reasons for why people may interpret it differently, and while SOME of the reasons are inherent to the text, they can not ALL be blamed on the text.

*I still don't agree that confusing is the right word, but I'll use it for the sake of our discussion.

Enjoy your Saturday, I'll answer take a look at the rest of your post with more time.

In answer to the title question I would say this...

The evidence would need to make there being a god the most logical and probable conclusion to the evidence presented..

Ie that exact same reasoning I would use for anything to be proven to me..

When I came down the stairs as an 11yr old to find a bit of the milk and mince pies gone that me and my little brother and sister left for santa, did I suddenly believe that there must be a father Xmas? No.. I went with the much more logical conclusion that my parents had done it for a bit of fun..

To me, believing in God(s) in any of his/ her/it's forms is illogical, primitive and a nonsense.

I'm saying that it makes the most sense. He could also get an endorphin rush from stomping on kittens. It's merely an explanation for why he feels the way he does.

I dont care about "justifications", just cold hard facts, raw data, and reasonable conjecture.

All my beliefs are justified, not all are proven to be true, but your insistence that my strong suspicion that religion has a net negative effect is simply a belief and identical in that respect to believing in a god is just silly and going nowhere.

/end

See above.

canines turning into canines

I cannot speak for Mightyboosh but in my experience skeptics do not really claim that ALL their beliefs are justified or proven, just that they try not to believe unjustified or unproven things, and are ready to review their beliefs when the lack of justification becomes apparent.

For example, I have no great problem someone accepting the claim made in this thread that laws against murder are the greatest factor contributing to reducing their number because that claim seems reasonable. But as soon as some other justifications to the contrary are proposed (like someone pointing out many examples where laws fail in reducing some behaviour) then I am ready to reexamine my beliefs in the matter.

or primates turning into primates

We're seeing a build up of alliances. US and Nato vs China, Russia, North Korea, Syria, Iran, potentially other BRICS nations. The reason so many nations were involved in WW1 was because the alliances dragged everyone in, like a domino effect. Could see a similar effect in 2014 participants. Remember WW1 was triggered by a couple of bullets going off and the killing of a relatively unimportant person. It doesn't take a lot to kick start a war, even a World War.

Financial system. The dollar is on its last legs. Yeah we've seen a nation suffer a collapse before (hyperinflation in Germany in 1920s) but the dollar is different. It's the world's reserve currency. If the dollar goes down, nations will be ruined. Debts of the nations is rising...eventually they aren't going to be able to service the debt. What happens then? We see nations like Greece, Italy, Spain...if any one of these nations defaults this system is coming down. It's hobbling along right now, but eventually it's going to blow. We were on the brink (apparently 48 hrs away) back in 2008 but it took a 17 Trillion injection (not sure if this number is correct, just rings a bell) to stop the financial system from going down. 6 years on, the 'too big to fail' banks are now even bigger 'too big to fail' banks. And what have we got to show for it? Austerity, no economic growth (i refuse to believe the numbers the government post - all manipulated). The central bankers have one get of jail card - war! And they are going to use it, but they can't just go off and invade russia and china...the people would see right through that. They need the people to beg for it, to want it, to support it.

The nations have the technology and weapons to destroy this planet now. 100 years ago, not so. So when war does break out, humanity itself will be threatened. (check Luke 21:26). A few nuclear weapons going off here and there and people are going to be terrified!

These are just a few ideas. Sorry for late reply been away.

Wow, how original, as if your worthless claims and ramblings hadn't been posted on every nutjob forum worldwide for the last 20 years or more.

I don't even know how you can deny the global financial system is imploding on itself.

All N_Rs beliefs are justified as well

I'm not looking for evidence and I'm not looking for proofs. As long as nothing remarkable has caused me to consider the hypothesis remotely plausible I won't waste my thoughts entertaining it.

No evidence is needed to discard a plainly and obviously unreasonable hypothesis.

This is a really fun question. But i honestly don't think there's an answer. It's probably equivalent to what it would take a Christian to stop believing in god. What you're trying to do is change someone's religious beliefs which, in my opinion is a waste of time because how difficult it is. There's only a small percentage of fully matured people that gave the ability to have their beliefs changed.

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Do you think that every opinion we hold is a belief and that all beliefs are created equal? It's the only position from which your line of questioning makes any sense but it would clearly be wrong.