This has a new significance with the Pope scandal

[jaycee]

Originally Posted by vermicious knid

Thanks. This is unbelievable:


Sinead O'Connor: When my father was 5 he was told a story by his priest... that a boy he knew had died without having been to confession, and was sent to hell... and priest claimed how he knew this was.. his bedroom burst into flames one night... and when the fire was put out there were two little handprints in the bottom of the bed, the boy had come "screaming back from hell" to have his confession heard... when they finish investigating sexual abuse, then it will be corporal punishment.. and then psychological abuse such as my father endured >>> are these things representative of Christ> No.

I think it's fair to say that that would seem pretty scary to a five year old child. It reminds me of part of a story elaborated on in "The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara"(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgardo_Mortara). Anyway, this seems to me to be another effective avenue for encouraging the child to join Christianity so he can be absolved of future sins, etc., and then regularly give cash to the collection plate at church as an adult, which should instead be relying on the wealthy Vatican conglomerate to supply funds.
Also, has anyone considered that confession seems to replace the more decent notion of making up for your mistakes? I mean, sure, one can make mistakes (who hasn't?) and feel guilty, but isn't it better to learn how to avoid similar incidences, and hopefully find a way to repair the damage, rather than tell someone about what you've done and leave it at that? Confession really is just a pointless waste of time (although admittedly religious practices generally are) that could be better spent doing something nice for the person that was on the receiving end of your indecency. Let alone that if confession makes the confessor feel less guilty about what they've done... well, that's not necessarily a good thing - wouldn't it be better to "carry the burden" as a reminder to avoid similar mistakes?
As for going to hell if you don't confess... well, hell's a non-existent pagan abstraction (this pagan bit needs citation - I can't remember where I read this... anyone care to help?), so fortunately none of us non-Catholics have to worry about it when we die.

[LikeAWillow]

Originally Posted by jaycee

. Anyway, this seems to me to be another effective avenue for encouraging the child to join Christianity so he can be absolved of future sins, etc., and then regularly give cash to the collection plate at church as an adult, which should instead be relying on the wealthy Vatican conglomerate to supply funds.
Also, has anyone considered that confession seems to replace the more decent notion of making up for your mistakes? I mean, sure, one can make mistakes (who hasn't?) and feel guilty, but isn't it better to learn how to avoid similar incidences, and hopefully find a way to repair the damage, rather than tell someone about what you've done and leave it at that? Confession really is just a pointless waste of time (although admittedly religious practices generally are) that could be better spent doing something nice for the person that was on the receiving end of your indecency. Let alone that if confession makes the confessor feel less guilty about what they've done... well, that's not necessarily a good thing - wouldn't it be better to "carry the burden" as a reminder to avoid similar mistakes?
.

B. False.

Confession isn't the way you make it sound. The actual name of the sacrament is Reconciliation, to "settle or resolve." That resolution doesn't come from only speaking your sins aloud; after a Catholic confesses, the priest recommends a penance to amend for the sin. This is the most important aspect of the rite, and you've left it out of your dismissal of Confession as a whole. If you've hurt someone, the penance is almost always to find a way to redeem yourself, to apologize to the person, to swallow your pride and go back to them like a decent human being.

[jaycee]

Originally Posted by LikeAWillow

B. False.

Confession isn't the way you make it sound. The actual name of the sacrament is Reconciliation, to "settle or resolve." That resolution doesn't come from only speaking your sins aloud; after a Catholic confesses, the priest recommends a penance to amend for the sin. This is the most important aspect of the rite, and you've left it out of your dismissal of Confession as a whole. If you've hurt someone, the penance is almost always to find a way to redeem yourself, to apologize to the person, to swallow your pride and go back to them like a decent human being.

Granted, this new information makes confession sound mildly more worthwhile... that said, I don't consider Catholic morality to be of high value (it spends too much time worrying about things people do in private, which harm no-one), although that's only a partially related matter I guess.

[LikeAWillow]

Originally Posted by jaycee

that said, I don't consider Catholic morality to be of high value (it spends too much time worrying about things people do in private, which harm no-one),

We're completely agreed on that. I'm not actually a Catholic believer in the..traditional sense. I like the Old Testament because I'm an English major, and I love a good story. I like the New Testament because I'm fascinated by power and morality, and I don't think there's anyone in history whose had more of either than Jesus. I like the rituals because I'm overdramatic, and nothing makes me happier than a good show. Occasionally these three things combine to make me post way too often in a thread about the Pope.

[Ghost_Tracker]

Originally Posted by jaycee

(I feel shattered!...., I see it this way - devote your life to religion, and you spend your time obsessing over sin, death, and the afterlife; devote your life to science, maths, and philosophy, and you discover unexpected wonders and beauty in the universe well beyond anything any human-made fairytale could ever offer!
(Phew! That was long... and arguably better than my first effort, fortunately! )

Well, interesting reply.

Here's the way I read it though, honestly -

"Nature is complex and wondrous, therefore there is no God. Although after 100 years of solid effort, neuroscientists are COMPLETELY unable to explain consciousness (and have as much as flat-out said that we probably never WILL be able to because we don't have enough intelligence to and it's not really "quantifiable") - we may SOME day, therefore there is no God. Believing takes time and effort (VERY untrue for most, i.m.o.) therefore there is no God. God may be different than we view him, therefore there is no God.

Just 'cause something seems logical doesn't mean it is.

And yeah, look into it, MUCH science is unverified these days. Like I said above, I LOVE science and think most of it is completely 100% valid. But as most scientists would assure you, it's a specific world-view which is based on a desire that the world behave a certain way - "logically" - and that it be "controllable" by man, and "predictable." It's not based on what is or is not "true," but rather on which theories point to which OTHER theories with the highest degree of probability.
For example, if Carl Sagan picks up a stick, it will fall to the ground, *EVERY* time.
Probably!

[jaycee]

Originally Posted by LikeAWillow

We're completely agreed on that. I'm not actually a Catholic believer in the..traditional sense. I like the Old Testament because I'm an English major, and I love a good story. I like the New Testament because I'm fascinated by power and morality, and I don't think there's anyone in history whose had more of either than Jesus. I like the rituals because I'm overdramatic, and nothing makes me happier than a good show. Occasionally these three things combine to make me post way too often in a thread about the Pope.

Fair enough I guess.
And forgive me if I ever sound aggressive - it's out of passion for the universe, truth, philosophy, ethics, etc., and out of annoyance at superstition.

[jaycee]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

Well, interesting reply.

Here's the way I read it though, honestly -

"Nature is complex and wondrous, therefore there is no God. Although after 100 years of solid effort, neuroscientists are COMPLETELY unable to explain consciousness (and have as much as flat-out said that we probably never WILL be able to because we don't have enough intelligence to and it's not really "quantifiable") - we may SOME day, therefore there is no God. Believing takes time and effort (VERY untrue for most, i.m.o.) therefore there is no God. God may be different than we view him, therefore there is no God.

Just 'cause something seems logical doesn't mean it is.

And yeah, look into it, MUCH science is unverified these days. Like I said above, I LOVE science and think most of it is completely 100% valid. But as most scientists would assure you, it's a specific world-view which is based on a desire that the world behave a certain way - "logically" - and that it be "controllable" by man, and "predictable." It's not based on what is or is not "true," but rather on which theories point to which OTHER theories with the highest degree of probability.
For example, if Carl Sagan picks up a stick, it will fall to the ground, *EVERY* time.
Probably!

Well, let's see if I can clear up any uncertainties in my wording.
Nature is complex and wonderous - well, that should go without saying! But then to posit complexity to explain complexity gets you nowhere.
Consciousness is but one of a great many scientific mysteries of our time. Why this should be considered special evidence for the godditit hypothesis (in comparison to, say, the unknown sources of dark matter/energy, which are yet to be considered anything other than natural, yet-to-be explained phenomena by religious minds) eludes me.
My point is because we may understand something better someday, you shouldn't insert God into the gap in the meantime. The gap ends up closing, and counts against any notion of a deity. Basically, scientists just admit their current ignorance, or offer possible solutions, and then get on with finding answers - a rather humble perspective that gives every reason to keep investigating, unlike "godditit".
Believing doesn't take time and effort, but religious practices do (especially for Muslims, with their five timed daily prayers) - time that could be better spent on things like helping people and pondering existence. Here's an appropriate quote:
"To an evolutionary psychologist, the universal extravagance of religious rituals, with their costs in time, resources, pain and privation, should suggest as vividly as a mandrill's bottom that religion may be adaptive."
Marek Kohn (although I can't pinpoint the original source of his statement... this was taken from "The God Delusion")
He forgot to mention "an annoyingly pervasive meme".
I'll quote again for this one:
"Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong."
Christopher Hitchens (again unknown original source - I'm getting bad at this - but this was taken from the umss website, http://www.umss.org/chalk_quotes/)
Now, what you say about logic is quite right - I can make the untrue but consistent logical argument...
1. All cats have six legs.
2. I have a cat.
Conclusion - My cat has six legs.
I would still ask you to give me some examples of untested science. Of course, if it all was really untested, the likes of String Theory would've easily become mainstream by now as scientific truth. Let alone that no-one would've bothered to invest any part of the $6 billion in the LHC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider) if modern day scientists really behaved that way. So far as the evidence I currently possess tells me, and what little of it I've shared here (space constraints, obviously), science is still chugging along as skeptically as it has in the past. By contrast, you've presented no evidence to suggest otherwise.
Now comes the point where I'm seemingly going to go against the grain of everything I've been saying - indeed scientists come up with "paradigms" which basically tell the universe how it ought to behave. Compare, for example, the Einsteinian paradigm and the Quantum Mechanical paradigm. The first posits gravity to be smooths warps and curves in space-time caused by the presence of mass, while the second posits particle exchange on a volatile space-time. Two very different ways of viewing the universe, to be sure!
So, what is it about scientific beliefs that separate them from superstitious beliefs? Why, if both classes basically tell the world how it ought to behave, should scientific beliefs be considered superior, or "more true"? Well, first try making a computer or aeroplane out of superstition, and then try again with science. No points for guessing which method will prevail.
Phew! That seems to cover it all...

[jaycee]

I've just been reading some quotes - http://www.umss.org/chalk_quotes/. Most of them are gems. Here's a few favourites:

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith; we need believing people.
- Adolf Hitler

I’d like to start a religion. That’s where the money is.
- L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-Galileo Galilei

To the Muslims, Christians and Jews: It’s just a little thing really, but do you think that when you’ve finished smashing up the world and blowing each other to bits and demanding special privileges while you do it, do you think that maybe the rest of us could, sort of, have our planet back?
- Marcus Brigstocke, British comedian

If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.
- Edmond de Goncourt

And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence
- Bertrand Russell

There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages.
- Ruth Hurmence Green

Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.
- Richard Dawkins

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality
-George Bernard Shaw

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn’t work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.
- Emo Philips

The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church
- Ferdinand Magellan

As people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers
- Robert G. Ingersoll

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.
- Gene Roddenberry

Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination.
- Edward Abbey

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
- Steven Weinberg, Nobel prize-winning physicist

I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence.
- Doug McLeod

It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image.
- Ludwig Feuerbach

What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
- Christopher Hitchens

It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible.
- George W. Foote

You do not need the Bible to justify love, but no better tool has been invented to justify hate.
- Richard A. Weatherwax

God should be executed for crimes against humanity.
- Bryan Emmanuel Gutierrez

Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.
- Robert G. Ingersoll

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for Atheism ever conceived.
- Isaac Asimov

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
- Mark Twain

I’m a polyatheist – there are many gods I don’t believe in.
- Dan Fouts

Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair colour.
- Don Hirschberg

Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma.
- Sam Harris

Atheists will celebrate life, while you’re in church celebrating death.
- Anonymous

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.
- Anonymous

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.
- Anonymous

Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence.
- Anonymous

And if this doesn't make you laugh in agreement, nothing will:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
- Richard Dawkins

[Ghost_Tracker]

Originally Posted by jaycee

Well, first try making a computer or aeroplane out of superstition, and then try again with science. No points for guessing which method will prevail.
Phew! That seems to cover it all...

Try making a computer that can do what the human mind can do...

Any-hoo, the basis of my thinking with all this stuff is this:

1.) Whatever consciousness is, it is somehow necessary for lipids and proteins to exist (with the properties they have, of course), and to interact with each other in the way they do, in order for consciousness and self-awareness to be possible. To me at least, it seems clear that the odds of a universe arising which has those properties are so low to make the supposition laughable. As they said in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," the odds are "as close to zero as makes for no odds." It just simply had no reason to happen, when there were literally an infinite number of other possibilities. And yet - and yes I know you're gonna think I'm making a circuitious, self-defeating argument here - but logic ain't everything, is it . . . - - - Consciousness (in a "human" sense) is NOT possible without those two types of molecules.

2.) It's simply not necessary for self-awareness to exist in the first place. In fact, it's evolutionarily a VERY bad idea. There's been BILLIONS of years for it to be weeded out. (selected against.)

3.) Come to think of it, "good" is evolutionarily a very bad idea. And yes, I know about social things supposedly causing more individuals to survive. Give it a few billion years, though, and it should be gone. It wasn't. (Yes, I admit this one's definitely shaky, but it's something that just occurred to me just now.)

4.) I don't think people in their WILDEST dreams would have been able to dream up Christ as a myth. Not with so much consistency. And there IS more consistency than inconsistency. And even a "cursory" reading of the Bible shows that there's remarkable connections between the Old Testament and the New Testament. These people just simply weren't that organized; they didn't have the mental ability, or the time, to be that consistent. (And yes, I know ALL about the Epic of Gilgamesh and all that; I just simply don't think it's relevant. It's similar, maybe it's even the same story. That doesn't invalidate it.)

5.) Order shouldn't exist. Plain and simple, there's no reason for it, in any sense of the word.

6.) Also - why should it be possible to make a tv set? Or a computer? Again, out of literally infinite possibilities, it seems REMARKABLY convenient. I actually consider nature to be quite KIND, compared to the way it could be. I honestly don't think that's random, it seems to me that "the simplest explanation" is that it didn't happen randomly, when again, the odds against such a random occurence are so microscopically low.

7.) In my opinion, the "time" argument is actually self-defeating. Give it an infinite amount of time, and a God will (somehow) "poof" into existence who is powerful enough to go back in time and create the Universe. So to say that time exists (in SOME way) is to say that God exists.

8.) Why, in a BILLION years, should there be 11 or 12 dimensions? (This was "proved" mathematically as early as the 1800s.) It just again seems remarkably complex to me, when nature "all by itself" clearly abhors complexity.

9.) The Big Bang shouldn't have happened. Wasn't necessary, wastes energy, and I just honestly don't see why it would have without a little "nudge." There "should" be just absolutely nothing. Science will never be able to explain that one away.

10.) As you said, Relativity and Quantum Theory are incompatable. And yet - both are clearly true. It's NOT that they don't understand it well enough (in my opinion). BOTH are true, and yet they're incompatible. wtf?

Anywho that's the "core" of some of my thinking on this. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'll most-likely never know. Don't give up easy though do I!? lol!

[jaycee]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

Try making a computer that can do what the human mind can do...

Any-hoo, the basis of my thinking with all this stuff is this:

1.) Whatever consciousness is, it is somehow necessary for lipids and proteins to exist (with the properties they have, of course), and to interact with each other in the way they do, in order for consciousness and self-awareness to be possible. To me at least, it seems clear that the odds of a universe arising which has those properties are so low to make the supposition laughable. As they said in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," the odds are "as close to zero as makes for no odds." It just simply had no reason to happen, when there were literally an infinite number of other possibilities. And yet - and yes I know you're gonna think I'm making a circuitious, self-defeating argument here - but logic ain't everything, is it . . . - - - Consciousness (in a "human" sense) is NOT possible without those two types of molecules.

2.) It's simply not necessary for self-awareness to exist in the first place. In fact, it's evolutionarily a VERY bad idea. There's been BILLIONS of years for it to be weeded out. (selected against.)

3.) Come to think of it, "good" is evolutionarily a very bad idea. And yes, I know about social things supposedly causing more individuals to survive. Give it a few billion years, though, and it should be gone. It wasn't. (Yes, I admit this one's definitely shaky, but it's something that just occurred to me just now.)

4.) I don't think people in their WILDEST dreams would have been able to dream up Christ as a myth. Not with so much consistency. And there IS more consistency than inconsistency. And even a "cursory" reading of the Bible shows that there's remarkable connections between the Old Testament and the New Testament. These people just simply weren't that organized; they didn't have the mental ability, or the time, to be that consistent. (And yes, I know ALL about the Epic of Gilgamesh and all that; I just simply don't think it's relevant. It's similar, maybe it's even the same story. That doesn't invalidate it.)

5.) Order shouldn't exist. Plain and simple, there's no reason for it, in any sense of the word.

6.) Also - why should it be possible to make a tv set? Or a computer? Again, out of literally infinite possibilities, it seems REMARKABLY convenient. I actually consider nature to be quite KIND, compared to the way it could be. I honestly don't think that's random, it seems to me that "the simplest explanation" is that it didn't happen randomly, when again, the odds against such a random occurence are so microscopically low.

7.) In my opinion, the "time" argument is actually self-defeating. Give it an infinite amount of time, and a God will (somehow) "poof" into existence who is powerful enough to go back in time and create the Universe. So to say that time exists (in SOME way) is to say that God exists.

8.) Why, in a BILLION years, should there be 11 or 12 dimensions? (This was "proved" mathematically as early as the 1800s.) It just again seems remarkably complex to me, when nature "all by itself" clearly abhors complexity.

9.) The Big Bang shouldn't have happened. Wasn't necessary, wastes energy, and I just honestly don't see why it would have without a little "nudge." There "should" be just absolutely nothing. Science will never be able to explain that one away.

10.) As you said, Relativity and Quantum Theory are incompatable. And yet - both are clearly true. It's NOT that they don't understand it well enough (in my opinion). BOTH are true, and yet they're incompatible. wtf?

Anywho that's the "core" of some of my thinking on this. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'll most-likely never know. Don't give up easy though do I!? lol!

Evolution's had billions of years to whittle away at creating the human mind, and that's without any kind of guidance (the selection advantages conferred by increased intelligence are slow to be realised)! Imagine what computers humans could make within thousands of years at the current rate of development...
1) You speak of the anthropic principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle) and fine-tuned universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe). Read at your leisure.
2) Self-awareness doesn't need to exist. However, to say it's an evolutionarily bad idea would be to say that, for example, the modern technological life we lead is harder than living life in the jungle, and that we have a lesser survival value with our current lifestyle. Do you think this is true?
3) Why should it disappear after a few billion years? A mixed amount of altruism and selfishness leads to an evolutionarily stable strategy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...table_strategy).
4) So Christ isn't a myth then... what about the stories of the ancient roman religions? Or any other modern religion about which you don't believe? As for internal consistency, I recommend reading the Skeptic's Annotated Bible - http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/.
5) Our universe is at its heart mathematical. So why should it be disorderly? And how would life live in a disorderly universe? Our lives depend on order, like the cyclical seasons throughout the year.
6) That's really just the anthropic principle again.
7) Remember, you're using Newtonian conceptions of time. As weird as it sounds to those not in the Einsteinian paradigm, space and time actually started with the Big Bang - the Big Bang didn't happen in a spacial location in a temporal moment of time. (And the expansion of the universe is an expansion of space-time itself - thus why there isn't a centre of the universe, and why objects further away from us are speeding away from us at greater velocities. Try to think of our universe as being on the surface of a 4-dimensional balloon being blown up - if you do it with a 3D balloon you can see everything further away from any arbitrary point on the balloon's 2D surface speeding away from that point faster than the closer points.)
8) Yeah, I'm not a fan of extra dimensions myself. Just one of quite a few reasons why I don't like String Theory.
9) My understanding of the universe (derived from my investigations into science, mathematics and philosophy) is that it's a physical abstraction/manifestation of a piece of elegant mathematics from the Platonic Realm - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philoso...tics#Platonism. It's fascinating, but deserves its own separate thread on the philosophy of science and maths, so I won't elaborate here.
10) Historically and presently, science has worked to unify apparently disparate fields and theories together, which usually has the pleasant side-effect of creating new insights into how the universe works. Work is being eagerly performed by theoretical physicists to unify these two antagonistic theories. Meanwhile, biologists have the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_...nary_synthesis), the combination of evolution and genetics, and chemists their unified periodic table and atomic theory. Biologists and chemists arrived at these unifications similar to how physicists will arrive at theirs.
Lastly, I don't expect you to give up! You said quite plainly that nothing I say will change your mind. The reason I keep up this debate is for everyone on the sidelines watching us, so they can think about it, weigh up the evidence and arguments, and come to their own conclusions. Let alone that it also makes me think about everything, and forces me to continue to reevaluate my current conclusions. Besides, don't you find pondering existence enjoyable?

[Ghost_Tracker]

Originally Posted by jaycee

Besides, don't you find pondering existence enjoyable?

Yep!