As christians describe it, i see your god as a trickster who demands belief without evidence in order to access an afterlife themepark. This doesn't only invalidate the concept of "faithful and sincere" belief, but also depicts this god figure as a wacky monster who deliberately tries to defeat the human rationale, by offering a bribe to submit to primitive bronze age ideas rather than nurturing our human curiosity and ingenuity to develop better ways to enjoy and learn about our existence.
@hellhammerz666 My only response to this is one that I heard columnist George Will use the other day, "You are a pyromaniac in a field of straw men." Your description of what Christians believe and why they believe it is nothing like what I or any other Christians that I know believe, so I don't even feel the need to defend my beliefs against these charges because they don't pertain to me.
@littlemas2 About this "strawman". It's simply a description of how your bible portraits this god character, after having analized his behaviour rationally with updated morals (the ones we use nowadays). But since, according to you, my description of what and why you guys believe it is incorrect, i would like you to describe it, because if i got it wrong, i'd like to correct it.
@hellhammerz666 Again, thanks for the responses. You have given me the idea for the next video that I need to make. You said that god demands belief without evidence, and that is not how the Bible describes faith, but non-believers think that it does and unfortunately so do many Christians. Therefore, my video will describe why this is wrong (from a biblical standpoint) and what kind of evidence we should look at to know what we believe conforms to the truth.
@littlemas2 You also suggest that God demands belief primarily so that we get heaven, and while heaven is certain a motivation, it is not the only motivation. For me personally belief in Yahweh (the Christian God) has had a big impact on my life here.
@littlemas2 Finally, you suggest that belief in god stifles human curiosity. Again, I do not think this is historically or currently correct. I have a Christian friend who is a Doctor and runs a cancer research lab at Mayo Clinic. His faith has not stopped him from rising to the top of his field in medicine. Do/have some people for various reasons stifle opposing views? Yes, but that happens in all belief systems, not just religious ones. China is not religious, but they do it.
@littlemas2 It may not on a practical sense, because we don't rely on this belief to develop our daily activities. We don't depend on supernatural beliefs when it comes to analize pretty much every aspect of our lifes. I would say most of us are able to treat bogus claims with relative distrust until evidence is presented. The problem is, that same rationality isn't applied to religions, because for centuries they've gotten away with scaring people from asking questions about them.
@littlemas2 Under this blatantly dishonest framework, religions have managed to erect a false wall of ignorance and undeserved reverence. This is why it sounds weird and strident when someone openly criticizes or inquires about them. Religious institutions managed to craft a taboo to protect their unfunded supernatural claims. Just by reading the bible objectively you can easily identify several inconsistencies and spot many weird claims no sane mind in the 21st century would admit easily.
@littlemas2 This is why these religions have managed to make believe there's somehow a need for "mystery" in religion. Instead of providing solid evidence for these things, they obfuscate their weak claims in a smokecloud of ambiguity and semantical interpretation. You can easily see this in christianity by taking a look at the hundreds of denominations that can't even agree on many aspects of the bible.
@littlemas2 It may not be the only motivation, but demanding gullibility in order to access an unproven afterlife is enough for me to distrust this. What kind of "almighty, all knowing, omniscient", being would demand such a thing? Regardless of the personal impact this belief has had in your life, accepting this shameless demand of gullibility drives me to think your standards of evidence need to be increased considerably.
@littlemas2 The type of evidence you should look for is stuff that you can show to everyone. Otherwise, it's not evidence at all. This is why non-replicable personal experiences described by many believers aren't enough to demonstrate their supernatural claims. If a person had a personal experience that made him/her believe in a god, or any other type of supernatural power, that's fine. However, the person can't expect to convince another person just by telling him about his experience.
We are also arrogant. We think that being the sole sapient species on this planet makes us somehow special. We look for purpose to our existence, when it's pretty evident the universe doesn't give a damn about us. However, as sapient beings, we learn to value life, to enjoy the time we have here, to experience the most we can. Does it really matter if there's an ultimate purpose or not? I don't think so. Besides, what's the point in living if you're somehow gonna transcend this physical form?
@hellhammerz666 You say we learn to value life, but not everyone does. As I said in the video, you are simply creating a reason for yourself, but even as you just admitted your reasons have no more or less significance than somebody that believes in spaceships coming behind the Hale Bopp comet. You create meaning in your life, but it has no more meaning than anyone else's.
@hellhammerz666 I am going to respond to one particular strawman that you brought up here and in your other response. Christians do not believe that we are living simply for a future life. We should live for God, but that includes this life as well.
In this life we are commanded to be joyful, thankful, good thinkers, parents, citizen, spouses. Being a Christian has not somehow made life here less important, but rather given me even more reason to live it well.
1. Yes it's a crutch. It provides no answers, only deluding and false imaginary certainties.
2. Yes, it is wrong, because it doesn't allow you to think properly about reality, regardless of how much comfort these ideas may give.
3. Life makes sense not because you're gonna somehow transcend your physical form in some afterlife themepark, but because you're alive. The main problem is that, as sapient beings, many of us can't handle the fact that we won't live forever. Self awarenes can be scary.
@littlemas2 1. Reality is our daily life, the physical reality we live day after day. Naturally, there are abstract ideas that allow us to develop a better understanding about it, such as mathematics. These ideas are practical and appliable to our physical reality. There's also philosophy, to try and figure out how to understand stuff better. Primitive desert myths are useless, even more in our time, when we have developed proper ways to understand this universe we have to live in.
@littlemas2 Back in the day, these myths were pertinent, and even valid as a reflex to our thirst for knowledge about the world around us. However, once you develop something as consistent as science, primitive imaginations become outdated. Personally, i see these imaginary almighty characters as placeholders, until we figure out a proper answer. They're the biggest arguments from ignorance in the history of mankind, and unfortunately, we are full of them.
@littlemas2 Why is aliveness better than non-aliveness? Perhaps because we happen to be alive? It's the time we get in this sentient form before we go back to be more innert matter again in the universe.. Maybe, there's actually an afterlife themepark on the other side, but until evidence is presented to support it, i'll stick to life :). What could be better than enjoying it? If being alive is a misery, then struggle to change misery into happiness, or go easymode and kill yourself.
@hellhammerz666 It is wrong when it leads you to take wrong desitions in reality. For example. People have comitted absurd transgressions because their imaginary friends told them to do so. In this aspect, it may even be equatable to schizophrenia. It's also a lazy attempt to grasp that which you can't control, rather than struggling to find real answers and solutions. Praying is as easy as wishing. In fact, they are exactly the same thing under the religious context.
@hellhammerz666 How can i know it? Prayer doesn't work ever. And when it seemengly does, it's about as randomly as any other mundane coincidence in our lifes. It's statistically impractical to rely on faith and prayer in order to achieve practical objectives. Besides, if this almighty character you guys believe in has a masterplan, what makes you feel asking him to change it is going to have any effect? I find this kind of reasoning completely inconsistent.
2) Yes. Lying to yourself is not only cowardly, but you're training yourself to avoid reality. The tendency to lie to yourself, and fear reality and hardships will spill over into other parts of your life.
3) What I do to give meaning to life is real. I don't need to give myself an imaginary friend. Just because life is objectively meaningless, doesn't mean you can have personal meaning.
Even if I granted that belief in God is a non-reality which I dont, why is reality better than non-reality? Who decides what is better? What if my personal meaning is to believe in God and that makes me happy? You just admitted that from your perspective there is not objective meaning, so your definition of cowardly and reality are simply your opinion. They may help you get through the day, but why are they better or worse than mine?
@SteinUndStahl666 As to your 2nd point. The happiest, healthiest people that I know are the most committed Christians. They are good workers, have healthy relationships (my parents have been happily married for 45 years), good relationships with their kids, and they and their children tend to be well educated and intelligent. So apparently the spill over has not been all that bad. Furthermore, they tend to deal with crisis, illness, and death pretty well too.
It's exactly like asking "Where did this all come from?" and answering "God made it." What made god? Either things can just *BE*, meaning the universe needs no creator, or things must have a creator, and god himself can't exist. It's a crutch, a cop-out to the questions. :/
@yarahahrwe Yes, in theory either God or the universe could just *BE*, but do both have the same explanatory power for what is here? I suggest the observable universe has qualities that cannot be explained by a purely material universe because those qualities suggest intelligence, design, and purpose. God, as described by the Judeo Christian tradition is a creative mind with a will, whose existence explains the qualities in the universe that seem to defy other explanations.
@littlemas2 Specific theories for creation ex nihilo are numerous, and tend to be beautifully elegant and captivating. Grand theories aside, at the quantum scale mass winks in and out of existence all the time (energy is conserved via antiparticles). It's fundamentally uncaused and unpredictable, and it's one of the most tested and proven phenomena of the physical world. There's theories on natural selection of universes and whatnot, but fundamentally stuff *does* just come from nothing.
@yarahahrwe Are you saying that at the quantum level there is no cause at all? Is this in fact proven? How could you prove it given that proofs rely on the idea of cause and effect? (E.g. If A = B, then given A we can also assume it is B). If A = nothing then how can you ever assume B? Any how can you test nothing? As to the theory of natural selection of universes, well you can posit all the Flying spaghetti universes you want, but that does not equal reality. Lots of leaps of faith here!
@littlemas2 All that aside if complexity demands a creator, then the creator must be more complex than its creation, and the notion of a being complex enough to make this universe is even less plausible than the universe simply being :p
@yarahahrwe Why is that less plausible? In my mind, I can think of some very complex things, and humans can understand the complexities of the universe. Now if I have the opportunity and/or ability to make what I can think, then I could make something even more complex then myself. In some respects humans have the ability to add layers of complexity to the universe that did not exist before, so why is it hard to conceive of a higher mind that could create new complexity?
@littlemas2 We haven't made anything ~nearly~ as complex as us. Not even close. We can however make simple things that make complex things (cellular automata, neural networks, etc), but this works against your position as it is complexity from simplicity. But even without that, from your stance it's still that *something* must have been made by *something*, more complex or not. So what made your god? :|
Such religion is a crutch because it doesn't answer any questions. You ask "What is the meaning of life?" and answer "To serve / honor god, to fulfill god's plan, etc." Why? What's your god's meaning of life? Why does he exist? "We can't know" of course. That's not an answer, you've just brushed the question under the carpet.
@yarahahrwe First, thanks for the response I appreciate good dialogue. You really brushed my question under the carpet though. My challenge is for atheists to show why your meaning of life is any less of a crutch then a religious meaning of life. I understand that you think I don't have a real meaning of life, but my response is so what, neither do you. In other words, any significance you give your life is also just a crutch to get you through the day. Why is your crutch better than mine?
@littlemas2 <3 back at you :) An atheistic, materialistic, realistic 'answer' to the question of meaning, or more appropriately stated a 'stance' on the issue since there probably isn't an objective 'answer', is not a crutch because it directly addresses the question. To frame it in terms of a crutch, it is actually standing on your own power and trying to walk however few steps as opposed to leaning idly on the crutch of belief that it'll just be explained later or isn't for us to know.
@yarahahrwe If as you say, there isn't an objective answer, then meaning must be subjective. Why is your subjective meaning better than mine? What standard makes your more individualistic stance better than my meaning taken from the Bible? You seem to be judging my beliefs from above or from some objective view point, but you seem to have just admitted that such a place does not exist.
@littlemas2 It's similar to the pursuit of science in general. Philosophically I can't know anything, really, and all my data about the external world come from my inherently fallible senses and cognitive faculties. Even taking consistent observations for granted as you must in science their resulting theories and even laws are 'suspended in space' from our observations - there IS NO ground, no bottom to this, because to every explanation to something physical you can ask 'why'?
@littlemas2 We *understand* this though, we know this and acknowledge this. Science is all about making statements that are 'less false', since once again at the lowest level everything happens randomly, and since you can always ask 'why, what's beneath that'. These are the best answers we have about reality, even though there is no 'bottom'. (This youtube character limit is really beginning to annoy me :[ )
@littlemas2 Religious explanations are crutches because they offer blinders to this truth - the truth in the mathematical and philosophical sense that there is no fundamental truth in the physical sense. The crutch doesn't withstand scrutiny though. Man invented all these religions - they all have very well documented, often fascinating geneses, the Old and New Testaments included. They're all works of man, none has withstood experimental testing, and most are designed to be unfalsifiable.
@yarahahrwe "the truth in the mathematical and philosophical sense that there is no fundamental truth in the physical sense" ??? If there is not truth in the physical sense and the physical is all that is, then there is no truth period, but that state on its face is self refuting. Logic breaks apart in a purely naturalistic universe. Something cannot be truth at a higher level if it has no grounding at a basic level..
@littlemas2 The unfalsifiability part alone nullifies their value. It makes it a pure work of fiction, an utterly irrelevant story of weight equivalent to star wars. It's believed simply because it is. Conclusions based off of this baselessness are worthless, and are less valid than those based off of anything real. Both 'bases' are floating in space, yes, but only one is supported by thousands of years (billions, really) of repeatable observation.
@yarahahrwe Here is my question for you? Could God exist? Do you have philosophical presumptions that preclude the possibility of considering anything supernatural? For instance, do you believe that the only way to be able to claim real knowledge is through observation in the physical world? If so then you are making an unfalsibiable claim by relying on a philosophical statement not grounded in observation of the physical world.
"If God doesn't exist, nothing makes a difference"
Why? Are you so invested in God, that you think life itself is meaningless otherwise? That seems pretty baseless and nihilistic.
If anything, you've proven exactly why using religion as a crutch is bad. It makes people think that this life doesn't really matter, unless we earn brownie points from a magical sky wizard.
Legislation based upon an unsubstantiated belief is what bothers me. The religions that are used as a crutch for people also are used as an authoritative position when the religion in question could just be a man made construct.
Some beliefs from each religion can be good on their own merits but then again they also have other reasons for believing that they are good beliefs(ex. The golden rule)
The bad comes when people hide behind religion, to reject change(rock music was once considered music of the devil, jazz too, girls wearing pants, etc etc etc)
They also use it as a crutch to describe things they cannot understand. The Greeks used a god to describe the sun rising and setting, fertility, etc (just like Native Americans)
The use of religion is similar to the use of defense mechanisms. Don't know the answer? deny it, or project it onto someone else.
Come on! Are you serious with this question? Religion cause's more harm in this world and sells you down the road of asking a question about if it's harmful. Yes religion is evil and anyone who sides with religion is allowing more harm to come to humanity. To become free you first have to break the chains that bind our mind!
"I don't believe in "meaing" for my life. I'm not looking to be rewarded like theists are."
First, that is not an accurate description of my motives (perhaps I will make a video on that sometime).
Second, I am curious what does drive you. Why do you get up and get moving everyday? This is an honest question, I really am curious, and not just trying to be obnoxious.
This is brysonsisSXE response that he posted on my channel page to my second question. brysonisSXE
i get up in the morning, because I was tought by my parents that we have one life to live so we might as well make it worth it. Instead of believing that this is simply a test to test our morals and well being to see if we get into heaven, I believe that i wanna live every second of my life as if it were my last.
"simply put almost all wars in the world is caused by religion without the crutch war would be far less common."
This statement is simply wrong factually. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. None of them made war or killed people because of a specific religious belief, and yet they are the biggest murders in history.
Please note that I did not claim that they killed because of atheism, but rather that they as well as many other found motives to harm that were not religious.
I am not saying that they did not have some religious belief, but rather that those beliefs did not drive their murderous behavior. Perhaps they all also owned black cars, but owning black cars did not make them murderous.
I agree that sometimes religious beliefs do drive harmful behavior, such as Islamic imperialism and the Christian crusades, but it does not follow that because some violence is encouraged by religion that all or most violence is.
I would content that most harmful behavior is simply driven by personal selfish gain or power motives. Even many religious wars have a major personal power part. In other words, religion get used by people who have other motives.
In the cases I mentioned, I think you would be hard pressed to find out the any of those men were driven primarily or even secondarily by religious motives.
ALL THOSE WARS I LISTED WERE WAGED CAUSE OF RELIGION!!!
I LISTED 10... and there is many many more KOREA WAR 11, DESERT STORM, 12, WW2, 13
how many do you want me to list???
religion has done nothing but caused hate,wars,violence, and backwards thinking when it comes to science and exploration..
is religion a crutch yes.
Is a temporary crutch okay? yes... but once it no longer serves purpose it needs to go before it causes harm.. AND WAKE UP THE CRUTCH IS CAUSING THE LEG NEEDING A AMPUTATION
Obviously, you and I have very different understandings of the historical facts. Now when I was a History major at a state university, my professor of Nazi History and the assigned history books failed to emphasize religion as the primary motive for Hitler or any of the major aggressors in WW2.
Many of your other examples also fall into this camp of not having primary religious causes. American revolution? Roman Wars? Korean War? Desert Storm?
read the book i referred to than written by hitler..
who better to say what they believe than the person them self
"primary religious causes"...? Wars have many reasons associated with them it is said if one event was to change the war or outcome would have changed.
No there is one very simple objective standard for morals, harm. Secular morals are derived by looking at everyone involved, for example the bible condones slavery, but does slavery benefit and not harm everyone involved? No, hence it's immoral.
Progress is increased knowledge and understanding, when Christianity was in charge we had the dark ages, with science we have modern medicine, flight, cars, space travel, etc.
Again, I have a dispute with your history. The enlightenment happened in an era just as Christian as the Dark Ages. In fact, the idea of an orderly world that could make sense is a Christian concept that drove many early scientists. Like it or not Modernism is built on the foundation of a Christian worldview.
The fact that Christianity existed does not make it the cause of modernism. Modernism is the result of science, logic, knowledge, discovery and education, not blind faith and dogma. Christianity constantly rejects science and logic and retards their progress. We learned in spite of religion, not because of it.
I agree the one does not necessarily follow from the other, but you used the argument first. The fact that the Dark ages existed does not necessarily mean they came from Christianity.
I will agree with you that religions can and often do cause an unwillingness to look at learn and grow, but it does not follow that all religions always do.
Nor does it follow that nonreligious people cannot have biases that influence them and keep them from growing.
We are social creatures, all social animals have empathy and social structures, crimes are punished and harm is felt. This is required in any social species in order for that species to survive. We feel it when we harm another and we don't want to be harmed ourselves so we establish social contracts like 'you don't harm me and I won't harm you'. Monkeys, wolves, lions all do it, we just take it further because we have reasoning abilities they don't. Nothing mystical about it.
You just describe the how of morality, but not the why? As a reasoning creature, I could chose to follow my social impulse and help women or I can follow my sexual impulse, and rape them.
Why is one impulse better than the other?
In some societies, people are routinely abused for the pleasure or gain of others, and the abusers get away with it all of their lives. Why is that wrong? Frankly from an evolutionary and natural perspective I think I could make a case for it being a good thing.
We all want to not be murdered, raped and robbed so we all decided to live in a society where murder, rape and theft are not allowed. Real morals (unlike those of the bible, like slavery) are based on everyone, not just the people in charge. I have the right to swing my fist, but my right stops at your face because my rights only extend to where others begin.
You're right rape has an evolutionary basis (and a biblical one) but we as reasoning creatures reject it in favour of logic.
Flying, why should I care about where your face is? Many people throughout history have not cared about other people's rights, and many right now don't. They also get away with it.
These people are obviously not part of the "we" you are talking about. Why should they care what "we" think?
Further, how do you know who this "we" is? Was there a morals election that I missed? I think the people of North Korea would love it if "we" would inform their leadership of the decision.
I think the crutch is still a valueable observation because of the perspective to which it is applied. Not all emotional crutches are merely those that give value to existence. They will not all equally be applied to both systems.
2. Yes because if you rely on something tha tis not real to from your personality you will more often make choices that harmfull, such as forcing your religion onto others, or relying too much on this non-existant god and perhaps end up dying.
3. My position is "better" because it is based in reality, and i value reality highly. The meaning or goals of your life can be nothing but personal but that does not make them equal to religion as they are based in reality.
"I contend that if God does not exist ... then nothing makes a difference anyway."
just because there will come a day when i no longer know whether i was happy or sad, doesn't mean it does not matter to me before then whether i am happy or sad. i don't see a lot of atheists running around setting themselves on fire or driving pencils into their eyeballs, simply because some day the memory of such an excruciating event will be gone.
question: what happens to your "soul" while you sleep?
Yes, religion is a crutch. This is not wrong in itself, but it is a problem for humanity when it interferes with scientific progress or the welfare of humanity in general (suicide bombers, faith healing, counterproductive "morals", sectarian divisions etc).
In short, a crutch is a problem when it transforms a false idea about reality into real problems for humanity. Of course, atheists can have that too. Not all false ideas are religious.
Who decides about progress? Well, scientific progress is pretty straight forwards to measure through its increased predictive power and ability to provide good tools to humans.
The welfare of humanity can also be measured in many cases, such as increased health/lifespan, absence of sexually transmitted diseases etc. Sometimes it's more subjective, in which case democracies tend to either vote or allow differences. No need to always enforce one idea of good in my opinion.
However, in clear cases of fraud, such as every case of faith healing I've ever heard of - I'm of the opinion that government should shut down the "religious practices" due to health hazard. Such things really should be trivial to verify are amazing cures if they work at all, they are not a "faith" issue. In short, society shouldn't turn a blind eye towards criminals hiding behind faith.
As long as there aren't any demonstrably bad effects, pluralism should be the rule though.
reason and logic are not a crutch, as the answers can lead to an outcome that are not beneficial. Religion could be better classified as a crutch because the outcome is always beneficial, making the unknown comforting.
"I contend that if God does not exist, or if we can't know whether exists, then nothing makes a difference anyway."
I've heard this before, but not with the addition of the clause " if we can't know whether exists."
If you don't mind me skipping ahead in this discussion, why would one's lack of knowledge (or the impossibility of anyone to acquire such knowledge) of His existence play a part?
In practical terms what is the difference between a agnostic and an atheist? If we cannot know that God exists then we are left in the same place as an full atheist when it comes to ordering our lives.
This video deals with the practical implications of worldviews, and for me at least, I don't see that their is a huge difference between atheism and agnosticism in trying to find meaning for life.
"In practical terms what is the difference between a agnostic and an atheist?"
Well, if I understand you correctly, with regards to the statement ""I contend that if God does not exist, or if we can't know whether he exists, then nothing makes a difference anyway"... it seems to give the BELIEF in God the same value (at least) as His actual existence concerning whether anything " makes a difference anyway".
In short, is it the belief in or existence of God that gives meaning to life?
As christians describe it, i see your god as a trickster who demands belief without evidence in order to access an afterlife themepark. This doesn't only invalidate the concept of "faithful and sincere" belief, but also depicts this god figure as a wacky monster who deliberately tries to defeat the human rationale, by offering a bribe to submit to primitive bronze age ideas rather than nurturing our human curiosity and ingenuity to develop better ways to enjoy and learn about our existence.
hellhammerz666 2 months ago
@hellhammerz666 My only response to this is one that I heard columnist George Will use the other day, "You are a pyromaniac in a field of straw men." Your description of what Christians believe and why they believe it is nothing like what I or any other Christians that I know believe, so I don't even feel the need to defend my beliefs against these charges because they don't pertain to me.
littlemas2 2 months ago
@littlemas2 About this "strawman". It's simply a description of how your bible portraits this god character, after having analized his behaviour rationally with updated morals (the ones we use nowadays). But since, according to you, my description of what and why you guys believe it is incorrect, i would like you to describe it, because if i got it wrong, i'd like to correct it.
hellhammerz666 2 months ago
@hellhammerz666 Again, thanks for the responses. You have given me the idea for the next video that I need to make. You said that god demands belief without evidence, and that is not how the Bible describes faith, but non-believers think that it does and unfortunately so do many Christians. Therefore, my video will describe why this is wrong (from a biblical standpoint) and what kind of evidence we should look at to know what we believe conforms to the truth.
littlemas2 1 month ago
@littlemas2 You also suggest that God demands belief primarily so that we get heaven, and while heaven is certain a motivation, it is not the only motivation. For me personally belief in Yahweh (the Christian God) has had a big impact on my life here.
littlemas2 1 month ago
@littlemas2 Finally, you suggest that belief in god stifles human curiosity. Again, I do not think this is historically or currently correct. I have a Christian friend who is a Doctor and runs a cancer research lab at Mayo Clinic. His faith has not stopped him from rising to the top of his field in medicine. Do/have some people for various reasons stifle opposing views? Yes, but that happens in all belief systems, not just religious ones. China is not religious, but they do it.
littlemas2 1 month ago
@littlemas2 It may not on a practical sense, because we don't rely on this belief to develop our daily activities. We don't depend on supernatural beliefs when it comes to analize pretty much every aspect of our lifes. I would say most of us are able to treat bogus claims with relative distrust until evidence is presented. The problem is, that same rationality isn't applied to religions, because for centuries they've gotten away with scaring people from asking questions about them.
hellhammerz666 1 month ago
@littlemas2 Under this blatantly dishonest framework, religions have managed to erect a false wall of ignorance and undeserved reverence. This is why it sounds weird and strident when someone openly criticizes or inquires about them. Religious institutions managed to craft a taboo to protect their unfunded supernatural claims. Just by reading the bible objectively you can easily identify several inconsistencies and spot many weird claims no sane mind in the 21st century would admit easily.
hellhammerz666 1 month ago
@littlemas2 This is why these religions have managed to make believe there's somehow a need for "mystery" in religion. Instead of providing solid evidence for these things, they obfuscate their weak claims in a smokecloud of ambiguity and semantical interpretation. You can easily see this in christianity by taking a look at the hundreds of denominations that can't even agree on many aspects of the bible.
hellhammerz666 1 month ago
@littlemas2 It may not be the only motivation, but demanding gullibility in order to access an unproven afterlife is enough for me to distrust this. What kind of "almighty, all knowing, omniscient", being would demand such a thing? Regardless of the personal impact this belief has had in your life, accepting this shameless demand of gullibility drives me to think your standards of evidence need to be increased considerably.
hellhammerz666 1 month ago
@littlemas2 The type of evidence you should look for is stuff that you can show to everyone. Otherwise, it's not evidence at all. This is why non-replicable personal experiences described by many believers aren't enough to demonstrate their supernatural claims. If a person had a personal experience that made him/her believe in a god, or any other type of supernatural power, that's fine. However, the person can't expect to convince another person just by telling him about his experience.
hellhammerz666 1 month ago
We are also arrogant. We think that being the sole sapient species on this planet makes us somehow special. We look for purpose to our existence, when it's pretty evident the universe doesn't give a damn about us. However, as sapient beings, we learn to value life, to enjoy the time we have here, to experience the most we can. Does it really matter if there's an ultimate purpose or not? I don't think so. Besides, what's the point in living if you're somehow gonna transcend this physical form?
hellhammerz666 2 months ago
@hellhammerz666 You say we learn to value life, but not everyone does. As I said in the video, you are simply creating a reason for yourself, but even as you just admitted your reasons have no more or less significance than somebody that believes in spaceships coming behind the Hale Bopp comet. You create meaning in your life, but it has no more meaning than anyone else's.
littlemas2 2 months ago
@hellhammerz666 I am going to respond to one particular strawman that you brought up here and in your other response. Christians do not believe that we are living simply for a future life. We should live for God, but that includes this life as well.
In this life we are commanded to be joyful, thankful, good thinkers, parents, citizen, spouses. Being a Christian has not somehow made life here less important, but rather given me even more reason to live it well.
littlemas2 2 months ago
1. Yes it's a crutch. It provides no answers, only deluding and false imaginary certainties.
2. Yes, it is wrong, because it doesn't allow you to think properly about reality, regardless of how much comfort these ideas may give.
3. Life makes sense not because you're gonna somehow transcend your physical form in some afterlife themepark, but because you're alive. The main problem is that, as sapient beings, many of us can't handle the fact that we won't live forever. Self awarenes can be scary.
hellhammerz666 2 months ago
@hellhammerz666 Thanks for the response.
I have some questions about your response.
1. What is reality? How do we know reality?
2. What is wrong and how do you know it? Why is thinking properly about reality better than not thinking properly about it?
3. Why is aliveness better than non-aliveness? What if being alive is misery?
Your answers all seem to include some knowledge of a good and bad states of being. What is your standard for good and bad?
littlemas2 2 months ago
@littlemas2 1. Reality is our daily life, the physical reality we live day after day. Naturally, there are abstract ideas that allow us to develop a better understanding about it, such as mathematics. These ideas are practical and appliable to our physical reality. There's also philosophy, to try and figure out how to understand stuff better. Primitive desert myths are useless, even more in our time, when we have developed proper ways to understand this universe we have to live in.
hellhammerz666 2 months ago
@littlemas2 Back in the day, these myths were pertinent, and even valid as a reflex to our thirst for knowledge about the world around us. However, once you develop something as consistent as science, primitive imaginations become outdated. Personally, i see these imaginary almighty characters as placeholders, until we figure out a proper answer. They're the biggest arguments from ignorance in the history of mankind, and unfortunately, we are full of them.
hellhammerz666 2 months ago
@littlemas2 Why is aliveness better than non-aliveness? Perhaps because we happen to be alive? It's the time we get in this sentient form before we go back to be more innert matter again in the universe.. Maybe, there's actually an afterlife themepark on the other side, but until evidence is presented to support it, i'll stick to life :). What could be better than enjoying it? If being alive is a misery, then struggle to change misery into happiness, or go easymode and kill yourself.
hellhammerz666 2 months ago
@hellhammerz666 It is wrong when it leads you to take wrong desitions in reality. For example. People have comitted absurd transgressions because their imaginary friends told them to do so. In this aspect, it may even be equatable to schizophrenia. It's also a lazy attempt to grasp that which you can't control, rather than struggling to find real answers and solutions. Praying is as easy as wishing. In fact, they are exactly the same thing under the religious context.
hellhammerz666 2 months ago
@hellhammerz666 How can i know it? Prayer doesn't work ever. And when it seemengly does, it's about as randomly as any other mundane coincidence in our lifes. It's statistically impractical to rely on faith and prayer in order to achieve practical objectives. Besides, if this almighty character you guys believe in has a masterplan, what makes you feel asking him to change it is going to have any effect? I find this kind of reasoning completely inconsistent.
hellhammerz666 2 months ago
1) Yes. It's a mental and emotional crutch.
2) Yes. Lying to yourself is not only cowardly, but you're training yourself to avoid reality. The tendency to lie to yourself, and fear reality and hardships will spill over into other parts of your life.
3) What I do to give meaning to life is real. I don't need to give myself an imaginary friend. Just because life is objectively meaningless, doesn't mean you can have personal meaning.
SteinUndStahl666 1 year ago
@SteinUndStahl666 Thanks for the response.
Even if I granted that belief in God is a non-reality which I dont, why is reality better than non-reality? Who decides what is better? What if my personal meaning is to believe in God and that makes me happy? You just admitted that from your perspective there is not objective meaning, so your definition of cowardly and reality are simply your opinion. They may help you get through the day, but why are they better or worse than mine?
littlemas2 1 year ago
@SteinUndStahl666 As to your 2nd point. The happiest, healthiest people that I know are the most committed Christians. They are good workers, have healthy relationships (my parents have been happily married for 45 years), good relationships with their kids, and they and their children tend to be well educated and intelligent. So apparently the spill over has not been all that bad. Furthermore, they tend to deal with crisis, illness, and death pretty well too.
littlemas2 1 year ago
It's exactly like asking "Where did this all come from?" and answering "God made it." What made god? Either things can just *BE*, meaning the universe needs no creator, or things must have a creator, and god himself can't exist. It's a crutch, a cop-out to the questions. :/
yarahahrwe 1 year ago
@yarahahrwe Yes, in theory either God or the universe could just *BE*, but do both have the same explanatory power for what is here? I suggest the observable universe has qualities that cannot be explained by a purely material universe because those qualities suggest intelligence, design, and purpose. God, as described by the Judeo Christian tradition is a creative mind with a will, whose existence explains the qualities in the universe that seem to defy other explanations.
littlemas2 1 year ago
@littlemas2 Specific theories for creation ex nihilo are numerous, and tend to be beautifully elegant and captivating. Grand theories aside, at the quantum scale mass winks in and out of existence all the time (energy is conserved via antiparticles). It's fundamentally uncaused and unpredictable, and it's one of the most tested and proven phenomena of the physical world. There's theories on natural selection of universes and whatnot, but fundamentally stuff *does* just come from nothing.
yarahahrwe 1 year ago
@yarahahrwe Are you saying that at the quantum level there is no cause at all? Is this in fact proven? How could you prove it given that proofs rely on the idea of cause and effect? (E.g. If A = B, then given A we can also assume it is B). If A = nothing then how can you ever assume B? Any how can you test nothing? As to the theory of natural selection of universes, well you can posit all the Flying spaghetti universes you want, but that does not equal reality. Lots of leaps of faith here!
littlemas2 1 year ago
@littlemas2 All that aside if complexity demands a creator, then the creator must be more complex than its creation, and the notion of a being complex enough to make this universe is even less plausible than the universe simply being :p
yarahahrwe 1 year ago
@yarahahrwe Why is that less plausible? In my mind, I can think of some very complex things, and humans can understand the complexities of the universe. Now if I have the opportunity and/or ability to make what I can think, then I could make something even more complex then myself. In some respects humans have the ability to add layers of complexity to the universe that did not exist before, so why is it hard to conceive of a higher mind that could create new complexity?
littlemas2 1 year ago
@littlemas2 We haven't made anything ~nearly~ as complex as us. Not even close. We can however make simple things that make complex things (cellular automata, neural networks, etc), but this works against your position as it is complexity from simplicity. But even without that, from your stance it's still that *something* must have been made by *something*, more complex or not. So what made your god? :|
yarahahrwe 1 year ago
Such religion is a crutch because it doesn't answer any questions. You ask "What is the meaning of life?" and answer "To serve / honor god, to fulfill god's plan, etc." Why? What's your god's meaning of life? Why does he exist? "We can't know" of course. That's not an answer, you've just brushed the question under the carpet.
yarahahrwe 1 year ago
@yarahahrwe First, thanks for the response I appreciate good dialogue. You really brushed my question under the carpet though. My challenge is for atheists to show why your meaning of life is any less of a crutch then a religious meaning of life. I understand that you think I don't have a real meaning of life, but my response is so what, neither do you. In other words, any significance you give your life is also just a crutch to get you through the day. Why is your crutch better than mine?
littlemas2 1 year ago
@littlemas2 <3 back at you :) An atheistic, materialistic, realistic 'answer' to the question of meaning, or more appropriately stated a 'stance' on the issue since there probably isn't an objective 'answer', is not a crutch because it directly addresses the question. To frame it in terms of a crutch, it is actually standing on your own power and trying to walk however few steps as opposed to leaning idly on the crutch of belief that it'll just be explained later or isn't for us to know.
yarahahrwe 1 year ago
@yarahahrwe If as you say, there isn't an objective answer, then meaning must be subjective. Why is your subjective meaning better than mine? What standard makes your more individualistic stance better than my meaning taken from the Bible? You seem to be judging my beliefs from above or from some objective view point, but you seem to have just admitted that such a place does not exist.
littlemas2 1 year ago
@littlemas2 It's similar to the pursuit of science in general. Philosophically I can't know anything, really, and all my data about the external world come from my inherently fallible senses and cognitive faculties. Even taking consistent observations for granted as you must in science their resulting theories and even laws are 'suspended in space' from our observations - there IS NO ground, no bottom to this, because to every explanation to something physical you can ask 'why'?
yarahahrwe 1 year ago
@littlemas2 We *understand* this though, we know this and acknowledge this. Science is all about making statements that are 'less false', since once again at the lowest level everything happens randomly, and since you can always ask 'why, what's beneath that'. These are the best answers we have about reality, even though there is no 'bottom'. (This youtube character limit is really beginning to annoy me :[ )
yarahahrwe 1 year ago
@littlemas2 Religious explanations are crutches because they offer blinders to this truth - the truth in the mathematical and philosophical sense that there is no fundamental truth in the physical sense. The crutch doesn't withstand scrutiny though. Man invented all these religions - they all have very well documented, often fascinating geneses, the Old and New Testaments included. They're all works of man, none has withstood experimental testing, and most are designed to be unfalsifiable.
yarahahrwe 1 year ago
@yarahahrwe "the truth in the mathematical and philosophical sense that there is no fundamental truth in the physical sense" ??? If there is not truth in the physical sense and the physical is all that is, then there is no truth period, but that state on its face is self refuting. Logic breaks apart in a purely naturalistic universe. Something cannot be truth at a higher level if it has no grounding at a basic level..
littlemas2 1 year ago
@littlemas2 The unfalsifiability part alone nullifies their value. It makes it a pure work of fiction, an utterly irrelevant story of weight equivalent to star wars. It's believed simply because it is. Conclusions based off of this baselessness are worthless, and are less valid than those based off of anything real. Both 'bases' are floating in space, yes, but only one is supported by thousands of years (billions, really) of repeatable observation.
yarahahrwe 1 year ago
@yarahahrwe Here is my question for you? Could God exist? Do you have philosophical presumptions that preclude the possibility of considering anything supernatural? For instance, do you believe that the only way to be able to claim real knowledge is through observation in the physical world? If so then you are making an unfalsibiable claim by relying on a philosophical statement not grounded in observation of the physical world.
littlemas2 1 year ago
@littlemas2 Furthermore, only one claims to be the ultimate, fundamental truth (and it isn't the one based in reality :p)
yarahahrwe 1 year ago
"If God doesn't exist, nothing makes a difference"
Why? Are you so invested in God, that you think life itself is meaningless otherwise? That seems pretty baseless and nihilistic.
If anything, you've proven exactly why using religion as a crutch is bad. It makes people think that this life doesn't really matter, unless we earn brownie points from a magical sky wizard.
thisnameisuniq 2 years ago
So what is the meaning in life?
Can you come up with anything that is not simply yours or someone else's opinion?
My point in the video is that nothing you suggest has anymore meaning that "earning brownie points from from a magical sky wizard."
Prove me wrong. Give me something that could not simply be characterized as an emotional crutch to get you through the your life.
littlemas2 2 years ago
You want me to give you a meaning to your life? Find your own!
thisnameisuniq 2 years ago
I have, but you told me that it is bad.
I am asking you to give me something to compare it to that is any better.
You talk like you have the moral high ground. Ok, show it to me. Let's compare your meaning of life with mine, and see if it is better.
littlemas2 2 years ago
@littlemas2
It is a crutch. By itself it is not wrong.
Legislation based upon an unsubstantiated belief is what bothers me. The religions that are used as a crutch for people also are used as an authoritative position when the religion in question could just be a man made construct.
Some beliefs from each religion can be good on their own merits but then again they also have other reasons for believing that they are good beliefs(ex. The golden rule)
dablue1 1 year ago
@littlemas2 cont.
The bad comes when people hide behind religion, to reject change(rock music was once considered music of the devil, jazz too, girls wearing pants, etc etc etc)
They also use it as a crutch to describe things they cannot understand. The Greeks used a god to describe the sun rising and setting, fertility, etc (just like Native Americans)
The use of religion is similar to the use of defense mechanisms. Don't know the answer? deny it, or project it onto someone else.
dablue1 1 year ago
@littlemas2
The meaning of life is different to everyone, some people want to be successful, others want to do good. To eachs own.
"Prove me wrong. Give me something that could not simply be characterized as an emotional crutch to get you through the your life."
Hard Work? Will to survive? Instinct?
No emotions required their but it gets you through the day.
There may not be a meaning to life but if their isn't then it is up to you to give your life meaning.
dablue1 1 year ago
As this is my first content video, I want to thank all of you for viewing and for commenting even if I disagree with some of you.
littlemas2 2 years ago
Come on! Are you serious with this question? Religion cause's more harm in this world and sells you down the road of asking a question about if it's harmful. Yes religion is evil and anyone who sides with religion is allowing more harm to come to humanity. To become free you first have to break the chains that bind our mind!
origonionhead36 2 years ago
1. yes religion is a cruth. it gives people false hope to live there lives WITHOUT proof of any god.
2. religion is wrong. Promoting ignorance doesn't make your moral any better than non believers.
3. I don't believe in "meaing" for my life. I'm not looking to be rewarded like theists are
I use secular morals and ethics to guide my life, as im' sure millions around the world probably use as well theist or not.
religion segregates us and it preeches hate on people who have different views
brysonisSXE 2 years ago
Thanks for the reply.
"I don't believe in "meaing" for my life. I'm not looking to be rewarded like theists are."
First, that is not an accurate description of my motives (perhaps I will make a video on that sometime).
Second, I am curious what does drive you. Why do you get up and get moving everyday? This is an honest question, I really am curious, and not just trying to be obnoxious.
littlemas2 2 years ago
This is brysonsisSXE response that he posted on my channel page to my second question. brysonisSXE
i get up in the morning, because I was tought by my parents that we have one life to live so we might as well make it worth it. Instead of believing that this is simply a test to test our morals and well being to see if we get into heaven, I believe that i wanna live every second of my life as if it were my last.
littlemas2 2 years ago
is crutch bad. No
but if you continue to use it what happens you learn not to walk...
simply put almost all wars in the world is caused by religion without the crutch war would be far less common.
unless you think mass killing of children , women and men is a good thing?
sykeo123 2 years ago
"simply put almost all wars in the world is caused by religion without the crutch war would be far less common."
This statement is simply wrong factually. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. None of them made war or killed people because of a specific religious belief, and yet they are the biggest murders in history.
Please note that I did not claim that they killed because of atheism, but rather that they as well as many other found motives to harm that were not religious.
littlemas2 2 years ago
why do you say i quote false information yet that is what you did....
in all of hitler's writings he mentions Christianity...
HE BELIEVED IN A GOD
read "Mein Kampf"
Pol Pot was ....Buddhist
Mao Zedong and stalin were both athiest though
holy wars, burning time, american revolution, iraq war, french wars,saxon wars, Roman wars, civil wars in Islam, Ireland past present future.
Wish for me to continue... ? you can only name two Mao who was trying to free country of communism and Mao
sykeo123 2 years ago
if ya don't get it all you can mention was mao cause stalin was ..... Orthodox Catholic
look IT UP... instead of taking the word of uneducated people on utube
sykeo123 2 years ago
I am not saying that they did not have some religious belief, but rather that those beliefs did not drive their murderous behavior. Perhaps they all also owned black cars, but owning black cars did not make them murderous.
I agree that sometimes religious beliefs do drive harmful behavior, such as Islamic imperialism and the Christian crusades, but it does not follow that because some violence is encouraged by religion that all or most violence is.
littlemas2 2 years ago
I would content that most harmful behavior is simply driven by personal selfish gain or power motives. Even many religious wars have a major personal power part. In other words, religion get used by people who have other motives.
In the cases I mentioned, I think you would be hard pressed to find out the any of those men were driven primarily or even secondarily by religious motives.
littlemas2 2 years ago
ALL THOSE WARS I LISTED WERE WAGED CAUSE OF RELIGION!!!
I LISTED 10... and there is many many more KOREA WAR 11, DESERT STORM, 12, WW2, 13
how many do you want me to list???
religion has done nothing but caused hate,wars,violence, and backwards thinking when it comes to science and exploration..
is religion a crutch yes.
Is a temporary crutch okay? yes... but once it no longer serves purpose it needs to go before it causes harm.. AND WAKE UP THE CRUTCH IS CAUSING THE LEG NEEDING A AMPUTATION
sykeo123 2 years ago
Obviously, you and I have very different understandings of the historical facts. Now when I was a History major at a state university, my professor of Nazi History and the assigned history books failed to emphasize religion as the primary motive for Hitler or any of the major aggressors in WW2.
Many of your other examples also fall into this camp of not having primary religious causes. American revolution? Roman Wars? Korean War? Desert Storm?
littlemas2 2 years ago
@littlemas2
read the book i referred to than written by hitler..
who better to say what they believe than the person them self
"primary religious causes"...? Wars have many reasons associated with them it is said if one event was to change the war or outcome would have changed.
sykeo123 2 years ago
Yes it's a crutch.
Yes it's wrong, learn to stand on your own. Also religion isn't just a crutch, it also promotes bigotry and retards progress.
I don't use a crutch, I face reality, good or bad, and deal with it. No faerie tales needed.
FlyingFree333 2 years ago
"Yes it's wrong, learn to stand on your own. Also religion isn't just a crutch, it also promotes bigotry and retards progress."
Why are things wrong? Why is bigotry wrong? What is progress and for whom?
Aren't moral terms subjective?
littlemas2 2 years ago
No there is one very simple objective standard for morals, harm. Secular morals are derived by looking at everyone involved, for example the bible condones slavery, but does slavery benefit and not harm everyone involved? No, hence it's immoral.
Progress is increased knowledge and understanding, when Christianity was in charge we had the dark ages, with science we have modern medicine, flight, cars, space travel, etc.
Not difficult concepts.
FlyingFree333 2 years ago
Again, I have a dispute with your history. The enlightenment happened in an era just as Christian as the Dark Ages. In fact, the idea of an orderly world that could make sense is a Christian concept that drove many early scientists. Like it or not Modernism is built on the foundation of a Christian worldview.
littlemas2 2 years ago
The fact that Christianity existed does not make it the cause of modernism. Modernism is the result of science, logic, knowledge, discovery and education, not blind faith and dogma. Christianity constantly rejects science and logic and retards their progress. We learned in spite of religion, not because of it.
FlyingFree333 2 years ago
I agree the one does not necessarily follow from the other, but you used the argument first. The fact that the Dark ages existed does not necessarily mean they came from Christianity.
I will agree with you that religions can and often do cause an unwillingness to look at learn and grow, but it does not follow that all religions always do.
Nor does it follow that nonreligious people cannot have biases that influence them and keep them from growing.
littlemas2 2 years ago
I also dispute the idea that harm is a useful standard for morality. Who decides what is harmful and to whom?
People have all kinds of different standards for what they think is harmful and what is helpful.
Furthermore, some actions necessarily harm some to bring benefit to others. Who decides when harm is justified?
Finally, why should any individual care about harm to others if their actions benefit them personally?
littlemas2 2 years ago
We are social creatures, all social animals have empathy and social structures, crimes are punished and harm is felt. This is required in any social species in order for that species to survive. We feel it when we harm another and we don't want to be harmed ourselves so we establish social contracts like 'you don't harm me and I won't harm you'. Monkeys, wolves, lions all do it, we just take it further because we have reasoning abilities they don't. Nothing mystical about it.
FlyingFree333 2 years ago
You just describe the how of morality, but not the why? As a reasoning creature, I could chose to follow my social impulse and help women or I can follow my sexual impulse, and rape them.
Why is one impulse better than the other?
In some societies, people are routinely abused for the pleasure or gain of others, and the abusers get away with it all of their lives. Why is that wrong? Frankly from an evolutionary and natural perspective I think I could make a case for it being a good thing.
littlemas2 2 years ago
We all want to not be murdered, raped and robbed so we all decided to live in a society where murder, rape and theft are not allowed. Real morals (unlike those of the bible, like slavery) are based on everyone, not just the people in charge. I have the right to swing my fist, but my right stops at your face because my rights only extend to where others begin.
You're right rape has an evolutionary basis (and a biblical one) but we as reasoning creatures reject it in favour of logic.
FlyingFree333 2 years ago
Flying, why should I care about where your face is? Many people throughout history have not cared about other people's rights, and many right now don't. They also get away with it.
These people are obviously not part of the "we" you are talking about. Why should they care what "we" think?
Further, how do you know who this "we" is? Was there a morals election that I missed? I think the people of North Korea would love it if "we" would inform their leadership of the decision.
littlemas2 2 years ago
@littlemas2
I thought you were history major?
Read the writings of Aristotle find out why the one of the first atheists name is famous.
sykeo123 2 years ago
I think the crutch is still a valueable observation because of the perspective to which it is applied. Not all emotional crutches are merely those that give value to existence. They will not all equally be applied to both systems.
VeritasLiber 2 years ago
1. Yes in some cases it is.
2. Yes because if you rely on something tha tis not real to from your personality you will more often make choices that harmfull, such as forcing your religion onto others, or relying too much on this non-existant god and perhaps end up dying.
3. My position is "better" because it is based in reality, and i value reality highly. The meaning or goals of your life can be nothing but personal but that does not make them equal to religion as they are based in reality.
MaMastoast 2 years ago
"I contend that if God does not exist ... then nothing makes a difference anyway."
just because there will come a day when i no longer know whether i was happy or sad, doesn't mean it does not matter to me before then whether i am happy or sad. i don't see a lot of atheists running around setting themselves on fire or driving pencils into their eyeballs, simply because some day the memory of such an excruciating event will be gone.
question: what happens to your "soul" while you sleep?
abstracht 2 years ago
Yes, religion is a crutch. This is not wrong in itself, but it is a problem for humanity when it interferes with scientific progress or the welfare of humanity in general (suicide bombers, faith healing, counterproductive "morals", sectarian divisions etc).
In short, a crutch is a problem when it transforms a false idea about reality into real problems for humanity. Of course, atheists can have that too. Not all false ideas are religious.
Gnomefro 2 years ago
Anyway, it's pretty sad that you see no value in your own judgment of things, or your relations with other people.
I think I'll chalk that up as another problem with crutches. It removes people's minds from what really matters, and their lives are poorer for it.
It's ok to take pleasure from the little things dude. No need to let megalomania run amok and require all your acts to have eternal meanings. =)
For my own part, I enjoy helping humanity take baby steps forward.
Gnomefro 2 years ago
Thanks for the response. I did not say that my own judgment has no value, or that I do not take pleasure in the little things.
Heck, my 18 month old daughters laugh or a kiss from my wife is enough to make my day!
I actually agree with your comment that when religion becomes harmful then it a problem.
On the other hand, I wonder how your justify ideas about progress and the welfare of humanity. Who decides those things?
littlemas2 2 years ago
Good to hear! =)
Who decides about progress? Well, scientific progress is pretty straight forwards to measure through its increased predictive power and ability to provide good tools to humans.
The welfare of humanity can also be measured in many cases, such as increased health/lifespan, absence of sexually transmitted diseases etc. Sometimes it's more subjective, in which case democracies tend to either vote or allow differences. No need to always enforce one idea of good in my opinion.
Gnomefro 2 years ago
However, in clear cases of fraud, such as every case of faith healing I've ever heard of - I'm of the opinion that government should shut down the "religious practices" due to health hazard. Such things really should be trivial to verify are amazing cures if they work at all, they are not a "faith" issue. In short, society shouldn't turn a blind eye towards criminals hiding behind faith.
As long as there aren't any demonstrably bad effects, pluralism should be the rule though.
Gnomefro 2 years ago
reason and logic are not a crutch, as the answers can lead to an outcome that are not beneficial. Religion could be better classified as a crutch because the outcome is always beneficial, making the unknown comforting.
gobblegobblechew 2 years ago
"I contend that if God does not exist, or if we can't know whether exists, then nothing makes a difference anyway."
I've heard this before, but not with the addition of the clause " if we can't know whether exists."
If you don't mind me skipping ahead in this discussion, why would one's lack of knowledge (or the impossibility of anyone to acquire such knowledge) of His existence play a part?
Edella 2 years ago
* if we can't know whether HE exists...
Edella 2 years ago
In practical terms what is the difference between a agnostic and an atheist? If we cannot know that God exists then we are left in the same place as an full atheist when it comes to ordering our lives.
This video deals with the practical implications of worldviews, and for me at least, I don't see that their is a huge difference between atheism and agnosticism in trying to find meaning for life.
littlemas2 2 years ago
"In practical terms what is the difference between a agnostic and an atheist?"
Well, if I understand you correctly, with regards to the statement ""I contend that if God does not exist, or if we can't know whether he exists, then nothing makes a difference anyway"... it seems to give the BELIEF in God the same value (at least) as His actual existence concerning whether anything " makes a difference anyway".
In short, is it the belief in or existence of God that gives meaning to life?
Edella 2 years ago
If God exists but we cannot know him, then how could his existence give meaning to our lives?
I am willing to learn more about the distinction. Would we not still be left in the same situation of discovering or creating meaning for ourselves?
littlemas2 2 years ago