Apparently christianity is bullshit...

[The Good Reverend Roger]

See the thing with that is it's a belief in god, sure, but it's not a god that influences your decision making process on a day to day basis.

The only time I can think of having that run my day-to-day decisions is if I'd been ordered to be a death camp guard or something, where I'd have to either go along with it or become a victim of it.  The whole POINT of agency is to FIX SHIT YOURSELF, not to wait for big sky daddy to fix it for you.

Pretty sure God wasn't cheering William Jennings Bryan along when he was claiming that whales are fish and humans aren't mammals.  It would be like watching your teenage son suddenly decide that your REAL intent for him was for him to wear diapers forever.

Problem is the prehistoric people who invented god received god's holy word wrote down a lot of bizarre shit that probably didn't even make much sense in the prehistoric context, never mind nowadays

Actually, what they wrote down made PERFECT SENSE if you lived in a small population in a desert, surrounded by other, hostile tribes and little or no sense for field sanitation.

For a low-tech culture, the laws for governing the tribes (out of Exodus) make a hell of a lot of sense.  However, once you get past the "will we survive next dry season" stage, they suddenly become a bit outmoded.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Bingo! There's also the issue that I'd kinda expect cavemen to swallow all the - kindom of naria meets the exorcist - mumbo jumbo. People who have watched men bouncing about on the moon and emailed their pals on mobile phones? It's kinda like, at what point do you tell your kid there's no such thing as the tooth fairy? Surely before they've organised a trip to the fucking moon, with no adult supervision?

[Demolition Squid]

Here's where it breaks down...

A significant proportion of people who would define themselves as religious do not sheepishly follow their church. Protestantism was largely founded on the idea that a personal relationship with God can be infinitely more fulfilling. The reason there are so many sects within religions boils down to disagreement, which you wouldn't have if people blindly submitted to authority. Some people might. Most people don't; they self-edit, they pick and choose which bits they want to believe in, and which they don't. That's why you'll never beat a fundamentalist with bible quotes. They are fundamentally committed to the pieces they like. The pieces they don't, they are happy to ignore.

Loudmouths with extremist views get a lot of attention, because loudmouths with extremist views get a lot of attention in any group. Faith is a personal thing, and even within the same church, let alone the same religion, you'll find people who have varying beliefs.

Religion doesn't make sense to you... and that's fine. I get that you've had bad experiences with it. But projecting the bad experiences you've had and assuming that it is the same for everyone else is patronizing. I would expect that most of the people on this board who have faith, have examined that faith and thought extensively about it. I doubt anyone likely to read your posts here will have uncritically absorbed religious beliefs. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who have, but again, that's not something which is a necessity with the entirety of all religious experience.

Spirituality can be damaging, but it can also be profoundly helpful. Particularly when dealing with death and loss, but also as a gateway into all sorts of deeper ethical dilemmas. Quite aside from that, holy books can often be moving and beautiful. Just saying 'go with your gut' is fine, but there's a lot of times my gut doesn't know what to think, and then I tend to fall back on the philosophy and theology I've read to come up with an answer. I don't even consider myself to be religious or spiritual, but I've found uses in my day to day life for the ideas I've picked up from them along the way.

The Chao Te Ching is a great example of what religion can provide in modern life, IMO. Complicated ideas illustrated in brief through metaphor.

Like Roger keeps saying, there is no way to know whether there's a God or not until we find out the hard way. Continuing to use these tooth fairy/sky daddy strawmen is just... wrongheaded. It can not make sense to you and make sense to other people and both attitudes are equally valid. The difference between calling someone a 'faithfool' and calling someone a 'teabagger' is that the teabagger's positions can be taken apart through rational argument and discourse. You won't know if you're right or the religious individual is until you are dead. You might have strong beliefs on the subject, but hey, so do they. That's the nature of belief.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Not a word I'd use (annoys me prolly as much as faithfools does you) I always thought it related to people who were more like "someone think for me pls" than necessarily a religious connotation.

What I mean is "dupes" in that they've fallen for a line in bullshit. Same idea as if they fell for a 419 scam or similar. Thing is (and this is where I'm kinda u-turning) it is a very good and (more importantly) very well delivered line in bullshit. Most are brought up with it from birth so I guess you don't really have to be an imbecile to believe it.

Also, it isn't falsifiable.  In the end, it's a matter of personal preference.

I don't think that follows. Just because you don't know something doesn't mean you can make stuff up.
Maybe the rules are different when not only you don't know but can't possibly know something? That still sounds suspicious but I can't quite articulate why.

You can't mix science and religion.  They are by definition mutually exclusive, and attempting to apply one to the other always ends in tears.

For example, I offer the Institute for Intelligent Design.

And why is this?

Because if God is everywhere, you can't take your God detector to a no-God zone to zero it.

And if the spags DID prove God's existence, then their faith is DESTROYED, because the definition of faith in a religious context is "belief without proof".

This is going to sound weird but I think that if you can't take an hypothetical God detector to a no-God zone even in principle, then God doesn't exist. Or rather, the word God becomes useless as a description of something in reality... and now I'm trying to mix science and religion again. Dammit.

Maybe the reason I feel uncomfortable making shit up in the face of helpless ignorance is that I like to keep my worldview nice and simple. In other words, an aesthetic preference.

What you just said is that god isn't falsifiable.

In science, you can't ever prove anything, you can only falsify it. If there is no way to falsify it, then it's outside of the scope of science. In order for a hypothesis to be scientific, it has to be testable. The goal of testing is to see if you can prove the hypothesis wrong. If you can't, that doesn't make it proven, it just makes it less likely to be false. If you can't test something, it's not science.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Here's where it breaks down...

A significant proportion of people who would define themselves as religious do not sheepishly follow their church. Protestantism was largely founded on the idea that a personal relationship with God can be infinitely more fulfilling. The reason there are so many sects within religions boils down to disagreement, which you wouldn't have if people blindly submitted to authority. Some people might. Most people don't; they self-edit, they pick and choose which bits they want to believe in, and which they don't. That's why you'll never beat a fundamentalist with bible quotes. They are fundamentally committed to the pieces they like. The pieces they don't, they are happy to ignore.

Loudmouths with extremist views get a lot of attention, because loudmouths with extremist views get a lot of attention in any group. Faith is a personal thing, and even within the same church, let alone the same religion, you'll find people who have varying beliefs.

Religion doesn't make sense to you... and that's fine. I get that you've had bad experiences with it. But projecting the bad experiences you've had and assuming that it is the same for everyone else is patronizing. I would expect that most of the people on this board who have faith, have examined that faith and thought extensively about it. I doubt anyone likely to read your posts here will have uncritically absorbed religious beliefs. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who have, but again, that's not something which is a necessity with the entirety of all religious experience.

Spirituality can be damaging, but it can also be profoundly helpful. Particularly when dealing with death and loss, but also as a gateway into all sorts of deeper ethical dilemmas. Quite aside from that, holy books can often be moving and beautiful. Just saying 'go with your gut' is fine, but there's a lot of times my gut doesn't know what to think, and then I tend to fall back on the philosophy and theology I've read to come up with an answer. I don't even consider myself to be religious or spiritual, but I've found uses in my day to day life for the ideas I've picked up from them along the way.

The Chao Te Ching is a great example of what religion can provide in modern life, IMO. Complicated ideas illustrated in brief through metaphor.

Like Roger keeps saying, there is no way to know whether there's a God or not until we find out the hard way. Continuing to use these tooth fairy/sky daddy strawmen is just... wrongheaded. It can not make sense to you and make sense to other people and both attitudes are equally valid. The difference between calling someone a 'faithfool' and calling someone a 'teabagger' is that the teabagger's positions can be taken apart through rational argument and discourse. You won't know if you're right or the religious individual is until you are dead. You might have strong beliefs on the subject, but hey, so do they. That's the nature of belief.

So much this.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Not a word I'd use (annoys me prolly as much as faithfools does you) I always thought it related to people who were more like "someone think for me pls" than necessarily a religious connotation.

What I mean is "dupes" in that they've fallen for a line in bullshit. Same idea as if they fell for a 419 scam or similar. Thing is (and this is where I'm kinda u-turning) it is a very good and (more importantly) very well delivered line in bullshit. Most are brought up with it from birth so I guess you don't really have to be an imbecile to believe it.

Also, it isn't falsifiable.  In the end, it's a matter of personal preference.

I don't think that follows. Just because you don't know something doesn't mean you can make stuff up.
Maybe the rules are different when not only you don't know but can't possibly know something? That still sounds suspicious but I can't quite articulate why.

You can't mix science and religion.  They are by definition mutually exclusive, and attempting to apply one to the other always ends in tears.

For example, I offer the Institute for Intelligent Design.

And why is this?

Because if God is everywhere, you can't take your God detector to a no-God zone to zero it.

And if the spags DID prove God's existence, then their faith is DESTROYED, because the definition of faith in a religious context is "belief without proof".

This is going to sound weird but I think that if you can't take an hypothetical God detector to a no-God zone even in principle, then God doesn't exist. Or rather, the word God becomes useless as a description of something in reality... and now I'm trying to mix science and religion again. Dammit.

Maybe the reason I feel uncomfortable making shit up in the face of helpless ignorance is that I like to keep my worldview nice and simple. In other words, an aesthetic preference.

What you just said is that god isn't falsifiable.

In science, you can't ever prove anything, you can only falsify it. If there is no way to falsify it, then it's outside of the scope of science. In order for a hypothesis to be scientific, it has to be testable. The goal of testing is to see if you can prove the hypothesis wrong. If you can't, that doesn't make it proven, it just makes it less likely to be false. If you can't test something, it's not science.

Yep. And when the testing results in your favor nothing is proven its supported. Because some exception or effect or another might not have been thought up yet or your instrumentation may be significantly improved upon by future generations. Astronomers used to think theyd never figure out what the hell stars were. Them we built better equipment and went oh. Yeah that kinda makes sense.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Bingo! There's also the issue that I'd kinda expect cavemen to swallow all the - kindom of naria meets the exorcist - mumbo jumbo. People who have watched men bouncing about on the moon and emailed their pals on mobile phones? It's kinda like, at what point do you tell your kid there's no such thing as the tooth fairy? Surely before they've organised a trip to the fucking moon, with no adult supervision?

Okay.  And since that version of God is no longer required, maybe a more adult version of God is in order, yes?  One that doesn't have to outlaw pigs and birds from the diet, because you aren't cooking on camel shit anymore, thus allowing you to kill all the trichenosis spirochetes, maybe?

IE, God doesn't need to be a complete dick or hold your hand for you, because you're no longer, culturally, a 2 year old trying to stick a fork in an electrical outlet.

So maybe there IS such thing, only he/she/it is done doing our thinking for us.  Grow up or die choking on your own waste, right?  Just like in the cold war, it was grow up or die under a never-ending radioactive winter?

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Re: the OP/article (I have a LOT of catching up to do): While I have no doubt Jesus was fictionalized, either partly or entirely, making this stuff up to appeal to JEWS is stupid. For one thing, Judaism considers God formless and forbids idolatry, and so can't venerate a man who walked around and took up space and farted. This is why Jews don't accept "'Jews' For Jesus" as Jews, but see it as yet another weasel attempt at evangelicism.

And saying "Oh yeah, your messiah came and went and you missed it, BUT WE DIDN'T"...well, try that on ANYBODY. 

[Lord Cataplanga]

In science, you can't ever prove anything, you can only falsify it. If there is no way to falsify it, then it's outside of the scope of science. In order for a hypothesis to be scientific, it has to be testable. The goal of testing is to see if you can prove the hypothesis wrong. If you can't, that doesn't make it proven, it just makes it less likely to be false. If you can't test something, it's not science.

Just because I can't use the scientific method to find that answer, that still doesn't mean I get to make stuff up. It feels to me like that is breaking some kind of rule.

I'm guessing it is an aesthetic rule I made up myself for myself to follow, because I can't articulate an objective justification to that rule.

That rule would be something like asking myself "do I have to believe this?" where most other people would ask "am I allowed to believe this? why the fuck not, no one can prove me wrong!"

[P3nT4gR4m]

Here's where it breaks down...

A significant proportion of people who would define themselves as religious do not sheepishly follow their church. Protestantism was largely founded on the idea that a personal relationship with God can be infinitely more fulfilling. The reason there are so many sects within religions boils down to disagreement, which you wouldn't have if people blindly submitted to authority. Some people might. Most people don't; they self-edit, they pick and choose which bits they want to believe in, and which they don't. That's why you'll never beat a fundamentalist with bible quotes. They are fundamentally committed to the pieces they like. The pieces they don't, they are happy to ignore.

Loudmouths with extremist views get a lot of attention, because loudmouths with extremist views get a lot of attention in any group. Faith is a personal thing, and even within the same church, let alone the same religion, you'll find people who have varying beliefs.

Religion doesn't make sense to you... and that's fine. I get that you've had bad experiences with it. But projecting the bad experiences you've had and assuming that it is the same for everyone else is patronizing. I would expect that most of the people on this board who have faith, have examined that faith and thought extensively about it. I doubt anyone likely to read your posts here will have uncritically absorbed religious beliefs. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who have, but again, that's not something which is a necessity with the entirety of all religious experience.

Spirituality can be damaging, but it can also be profoundly helpful. Particularly when dealing with death and loss, but also as a gateway into all sorts of deeper ethical dilemmas. Quite aside from that, holy books can often be moving and beautiful. Just saying 'go with your gut' is fine, but there's a lot of times my gut doesn't know what to think, and then I tend to fall back on the philosophy and theology I've read to come up with an answer. I don't even consider myself to be religious or spiritual, but I've found uses in my day to day life for the ideas I've picked up from them along the way.

The Chao Te Ching is a great example of what religion can provide in modern life, IMO. Complicated ideas illustrated in brief through metaphor.

Like Roger keeps saying, there is no way to know whether there's a God or not until we find out the hard way. Continuing to use these tooth fairy/sky daddy strawmen is just... wrongheaded. It can not make sense to you and make sense to other people and both attitudes are equally valid. The difference between calling someone a 'faithfool' and calling someone a 'teabagger' is that the teabagger's positions can be taken apart through rational argument and discourse. You won't know if you're right or the religious individual is until you are dead. You might have strong beliefs on the subject, but hey, so do they. That's the nature of belief.

Thanks for completely conflating faith and spirituality, after I'd gone to great pains to draw the distinction I'm making between the two terms for the purposes of this discussion. Fair enough, disagree on my usage of the ambiguous as hell terms. You choose option b - ignore that and tell me why I'm wrong.

Note: this a discussion about whether or not it is good form to take the piss out of people who believe in invisible sky gnomes. There is no right and wrong.

[Demolition Squid]

Organized religious thought- which, you know, rarely includes the term 'sky gnomes'- informs spirituality. I may have conflated the two terms, but the points raised stand. You can take the piss out of it, yes. I still think talking the way you've talked makes you look like an ignorant jackass for the reasons raised in my above post.

[Golden Applesauce]

Here's where it breaks down...

A significant proportion of people who would define themselves as religious do not sheepishly follow their church. Protestantism was largely founded on the idea that a personal relationship with God can be infinitely more fulfilling. The reason there are so many sects within religions boils down to disagreement, which you wouldn't have if people blindly submitted to authority. Some people might. Most people don't; they self-edit, they pick and choose which bits they want to believe in, and which they don't. That's why you'll never beat a fundamentalist with bible quotes. They are fundamentally committed to the pieces they like. The pieces they don't, they are happy to ignore.

Loudmouths with extremist views get a lot of attention, because loudmouths with extremist views get a lot of attention in any group. Faith is a personal thing, and even within the same church, let alone the same religion, you'll find people who have varying beliefs.

Religion doesn't make sense to you... and that's fine. I get that you've had bad experiences with it. But projecting the bad experiences you've had and assuming that it is the same for everyone else is patronizing. I would expect that most of the people on this board who have faith, have examined that faith and thought extensively about it. I doubt anyone likely to read your posts here will have uncritically absorbed religious beliefs. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who have, but again, that's not something which is a necessity with the entirety of all religious experience.

Spirituality can be damaging, but it can also be profoundly helpful. Particularly when dealing with death and loss, but also as a gateway into all sorts of deeper ethical dilemmas. Quite aside from that, holy books can often be moving and beautiful. Just saying 'go with your gut' is fine, but there's a lot of times my gut doesn't know what to think, and then I tend to fall back on the philosophy and theology I've read to come up with an answer. I don't even consider myself to be religious or spiritual, but I've found uses in my day to day life for the ideas I've picked up from them along the way.

The Chao Te Ching is a great example of what religion can provide in modern life, IMO. Complicated ideas illustrated in brief through metaphor.

Like Roger keeps saying, there is no way to know whether there's a God or not until we find out the hard way. Continuing to use these tooth fairy/sky daddy strawmen is just... wrongheaded. It can not make sense to you and make sense to other people and both attitudes are equally valid. The difference between calling someone a 'faithfool' and calling someone a 'teabagger' is that the teabagger's positions can be taken apart through rational argument and discourse. You won't know if you're right or the religious individual is until you are dead. You might have strong beliefs on the subject, but hey, so do they. That's the nature of belief.

Thanks for completely conflating faith and spirituality, after I'd gone to great pains to draw the distinction I'm making between the two terms for the purposes of this discussion. Fair enough, disagree on my usage of the ambiguous as hell terms. You choose option b - ignore that and tell me why I'm wrong.

Note: this a discussion about whether or not it is good form to take the piss out of people who believe in invisible sky gnomes. There is no right and wrong.

Even the most ignorant and hateful Southern Baptists I've had the misfortune of interacting with didn't believe in "invisible sky gnomes." Mostly they believed in themselves, they believed they were Right, and that anyone who didn't agree with them 100% was worthless trash. They're problem wasn't that they (allegedly) believed in a higher power, but that they were dicks.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

In science, you can't ever prove anything, you can only falsify it. If there is no way to falsify it, then it's outside of the scope of science. In order for a hypothesis to be scientific, it has to be testable. The goal of testing is to see if you can prove the hypothesis wrong. If you can't, that doesn't make it proven, it just makes it less likely to be false. If you can't test something, it's not science.

Just because I can't use the scientific method to find that answer, that still doesn't mean I get to make stuff up. It feels to me like that is breaking some kind of rule.

I'm guessing it is an aesthetic rule I made up myself for myself to follow, because I can't articulate an objective justification to that rule.

That rule would be something like asking myself "do I have to believe this?" where most other people would ask "am I allowed to believe this? why the fuck not, no one can prove me wrong!"

There are three things that people make decisions based on (outside of "I want this"):  Politics, Science, and Belief.  People that favor one of the approaches tend to think it is the best approach or even the ONLY approach to anything, even though the rules for one do not apply (as opposed to being wrong) for the other two.

Try running a government on scientific principles.  Go ahead.  I dare ya.  We've already seen the hilarity of trying to explain the empirical world in religious terms.  So why would hammering belief into a scientific context be any different?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Note: this a discussion about whether or not it is good form to take the piss out of people who believe in invisible sky gnomes. There is no right and wrong.

Set A = all people.

Set B = all people who have religious beliefs.

Since all members of set B are also members of set A, and since set A is the target group for piss extraction, then the answer to your question is "yes, it is good form".  However, the reason they are targeted is because they belong in the set "all people", and if you think YOU aren't in set B, then you have another thing coming, good sir.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Everyone knows that gnomes are Earth elementals.

Pfft. Sky gnomes. What did they do, fuck some sylphs and have babies?