0
   

Religion versus human dignity.

 
 
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 06:37 am
fresco wrote:
I am interested in contributors views on this word "dignity" as used in the original quotation which I repeat for convenience.

Quote:
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.
Weinber


The Big Bird's comments about those subjective judgments lacking "dignity" is interesting--i'd simply note that whether or not "right/wrong" or "good/evil" have dignity would depend upon the behavior of the person acting upon their subjective view of these concepts.

As for commenting on the thesis which Fresco quotes above, i'd be happy to point out that i have said for all of my adult life (and even before i could have been considered an adult), and that i have previously written in these fora that religion never made a bad man good, and the lack of the benefit of clergy never made a good man bad.
0 Replies
 
wwlcj1982
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 06:42 am
EpiNirvana wrote:


Without an after life, mortal life is precious.


Precious does not mean meaning of life. Meaning can only obtain from ultimate purpose. Death of souls and bodies make that ultimate purpose impossible.

And the word "precious" can also be negative. It totoally depends on people's attitudes towards life. A person who cherish life most can also have the great possiblity to live dissipated life if his expectation fails in his life time.

EpiNirvana wrote:


I know a number of christians friends from when i was in the "faith". And i asked most about why there in it, and those who i can find completely honest will say fear of hell. Christianity is religion of love, then why arent their ppl feeling it?

If they don't believe it, why they care about whether they will be in hell or not? If they believe it, then why would they fear of hell? This is the contradiction, I think. Maybe they just looking for benefits in their belief.

EpiNirvana wrote:


Finally i say a mortal life can give a eternal meaning. Weather for good or evil, we remember rome, we rember Jesus no matter christ or not, we rember hitler for evil, we rember..... See you can trully impact the world, so its not just the here and now its forever on earth.


The problem here is that , yes, for us they have a eternal meaning, but for themselves, they totoally lose it. As for Juses Christ, he is not human, otherwise he is merely a crazyman just because he preached that he himself was the god and he was willing to die for saving humans from the sin by sheddng his blood on cross.
0 Replies
 
Doktor S
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 02:25 pm
wwlcj1982,
I have a number of contentions with your previous post.

Quote:

Precious does not mean meaning of life. Meaning can only obtain from ultimate purpose.

Firstly, is english your first language? Sentences like this lead me to suspect otherwise. Regardless, from this I can only extrapolate that you are saying that the meaning of life is mutually exclusive to 'ultimate purpose'.
My first contention, if that is indeed what you are saying, is with your use of the phrase 'meaning of life'. This is the meaning of life.


Life.
-noun
1. the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.


Beyond this, life has no meaning, until of course you start to equate meaning with purpose, as you seem to be doing. The purpose of life is to continue. It could be argued that this or that magical deity set it all in motion for whatever nefarious reason the believer can come up with, but without any evidence to support such a thing the arguments always run hollow and empty. Absent any evidence, we must judge by what life does. What life does is continue, by any means necessary.
Quote:

Death of souls and bodies make that ultimate purpose impossible.

Define 'soul'.
What is the 'ultimate purpose', and what evidence lead you to believe this?
Quote:

And the word "precious" can also be negative. It totoally depends on people's attitudes towards life. A person who cherish life most can also have the great possiblity to live dissipated life if his expectation fails in his life time.

Try as I might, I can't extrapolate anything meaningful from this mess. Dissipated life? Huh?
Quote:

As for Juses Christ, he is not human, otherwise he is merely a crazyman just because he preached that he himself was the god and he was willing to die for saving humans from the sin by sheddng his blood on cross.

Yes, it is much easier to believe he must have been a supernatural uberbeing, than to believe he was a regular guy with ego issues.
Personally I choose option C - literary invention.
0 Replies
 
neologist
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 03:19 pm
wwlcj1982 wrote:

I don't know that you'v ever read the Bible or know anything about Christianity at all. According to the Bible, afterlife is not a reward, it's the real thing no matter that you are firm beliver or not(the believer will go to heaven and nobeliever will go to hell). . .
A spurious contention actually, since the dead "are conscious of nothing at all." (Ecclesiastes 9:5)
0 Replies
 
Wolf ODonnell
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 03:19 pm
wwlcj1982 wrote:
I'm afraid you didn't get my point. Wolf_ODonnell.
I'm not quite sure the statement "goodness" equates with "conformity" is right or not. Because in my opinion "goodness" does not only mean the knowledge of goodness which one should abtain by reasoning, but also refer to the self-knowing of goodness which I believe does not come from the education or any reasoning.


You missed my point. I never stated goodness meant the knowledge of goodness. In fact, goodness is anything but. It is acting on the knowledge.

Quote:
The fact is that the knowledge of goodness you get from reasoning will not ensure you to do the good thing.


Nor will the self-knowing goodness. Case in point, look at any anti-Semite or black-hating bigot. Self-knowing of goodness is no better.

Quote:
Actually they are not goodness at all. Without higher standards, Humans behavior would subject to the laws of benefing himself at whatever it costs.


Yet somehow the animals that don't have these higher standards care for others and exhibit some sense of altruism. Confucianism is an atheistic belief that sets standards similar to those in any other religion you can find. They're clearly not higher standards, yet they achieve the same thing.

Furthermore, as there is no concept of Heaven and Hell with the atheistic belief, there isn't the chance that people might do something for a reward and not for the act itself.

wwlcj1982 wrote:
I don't know that you'v ever read the Bible or know anything about Christianity at all.


An unwarranted assumption. Just because I disagree with you does not mean I do not know anything about Christianity at all. I can prove that I know something about Christianity.

Jesus was crucified on the cross and Christians say that it was meant to be and that he died for our sins. It is said that through that act, he saved us all etc. etc.

Quote:
According to the Bible, afterlife is not a reward, it's the real thing no matter that you are firm beliver or not(the believer will go to heaven and nobeliever will go to hell).


It still doesn't prevent it from being a reward.

Quote:
And the reason that a Christian go to the heaven is not the reward that he do everything according to the Ten Commandments, just that he believe that God is real thing and he would like to live in Juses Christ(I'm not very sure about the original words).


That is doctrine

Quote:
And Buddhist believes afterlife too, not because it's the reward given by whatever the God.


Your grammar is starting to break down. Buddhists believe in reincarnation. The Nirvana they speak of equates more to nothingness than an afterlife.

Quote:
The reason why I said life is meaningless without afterlife is that you can't solve the problem where did you come from and where will you go after death.


We still can't. Just because you believe the afterlife is there, doesn't mean it is. Just because someone says its there, doesn't mean it is.

A life can still be meaningless with an afterlife, something you don't deny, I suppose. An afterlife therefore does not mean give a life meaning. It does not give a life purpose. It gives the person somewhere to go after they dead, but it does not give them meaning or purpose.

Take a Christian that doesn't follow any of Christ's teachings, but only believes that Jesus is his Saviour, that Jesus is the Son of God and that only through Jesus will he have salvation. He doesn't give to charity. He doesn't do anything to help anyone.

What purpose does his life have then? What was the meaning of his life? He still goes into the afterlife according to you, and if you believe in Hell, then he goes into the afterlife even if he sinned and doesn't get to Heaven.

He had none.

The existence of the afterlife didn't give his life any purpose or meaning.
0 Replies
 
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 03:26 pm
Doktor S wrote:
Personally I choose option C - literary invention.



heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .


Alright, carry on . . .
0 Replies
 
Wolf ODonnell
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 04:37 pm
I just realised that one of my responses got cut off... specifically the one that staets solely "That is doctrine". Unfortunately, I can't remember what it was exactly I wanted to say in response, so ignore those three words.
0 Replies
 
wwlcj1982
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 07:35 pm
Doktor S wrote:
wwlcj1982,
I have a number of contentions with your previous post.

Quote:

Precious does not mean meaning of life. Meaning can only obtain from ultimate purpose.

Firstly, is english your first language? Sentences like this lead me to suspect otherwise. Regardless, from this I can only extrapolate that you are saying that the meaning of life is mutually exclusive to 'ultimate purpose'.
My first contention, if that is indeed what you are saying, is with your use of the phrase 'meaning of life'. This is the meaning of life.


Life.
-noun
1. the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.


Beyond this, life has no meaning, until of course you start to equate meaning with purpose, as you seem to be doing. The purpose of life is to continue. It could be argued that this or that magical deity set it all in motion for whatever nefarious reason the believer can come up with, but without any evidence to support such a thing the arguments always run hollow and empty. Absent any evidence, we must judge by what life does. What life does is continue, by any means necessary.

Your guess is right. Chinese is my first language.

The meaning of life is not mutually exclusive to "ultimate purpose". I don't know how can you get this conclusion. The meaning of life include
the meaning of "precious", but "precious" does not mean meaning of life.

"My first contention, if that is indeed what you are saying, is with your use of the phrase 'meaning of life'. This is the meaning of life. "
I'm not sure what you are saying(sorry for my poor English), if what you are saying is that the meaning of life is what I am doing. I guess you will have to understand the "ultmate purpose" I'v used, to say that, otherwise you just use your own understanding to explain my words.
"ultimate purpose" to me only means that our existence in this world has an aim . We have to find it out. The life of ourselves shouldn't be like this by accident. So I need to choose to believe something. As long as it's not been disproved, I'll stick to it. Maybe you would say it does not prove that what you believe is the truth. But if you choose to accept it, it is the truth. The only thing you have to do is to stay open-minded and willing to reason what you believe in order to get deep understanding. A person who don't understand what they believe is not a real believer.
0 Replies
 
wwlcj1982
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 08:00 pm
Doktor S wrote:
wwlcj1982,
Death of souls and bodies make that ultimate purpose impossible.

Define 'soul'.
What is the 'ultimate purpose', and what evidence lead you to believe this?
[/quote]
The word of "soul" can't be defined, as long as we all don't have any knowledge about it. But we can know it by all the other things. It is always related to sole and exclusive "self". That's what make you who you are and why you are not mixed with other persons. You life and death is exclusive. There is no other yourself living in this world. Someone would say death is a universal thing, but I would say that death is one and only because "self" is one and only. As long as your "self" is only, and never happen again in this world, you'll never know soul by any scientific study, because scientific methods can only deal with things happens not jus one time.

Actually evidence can't lead to a person to believe anything, because evidence can't prove that something is the eternal truth. There is always something else there to support a person belief. There is a motivation behind man to believe.
0 Replies
 
wwlcj1982
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 08:04 pm
neologist wrote:
wwlcj1982 wrote:

I don't know that you'v ever read the Bible or know anything about Christianity at all. According to the Bible, afterlife is not a reward, it's the real thing no matter that you are firm beliver or not(the believer will go to heaven and nobeliever will go to hell). . .
A spurious contention actually, since the dead "are conscious of nothing at all." (Ecclesiastes 9:5)

no, it is not, unless you forget the Revelation.
0 Replies
 
wwlcj1982
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 08:12 pm
Doktor S wrote:
wwlcj1982,
Quote:

And the word "precious" can also be negative. It totoally depends on people's attitudes towards life. A person who cherish life most can also have the great possiblity to live dissipated life if his expectation fails in his life time.

Try as I might, I can't extrapolate anything meaningful from this mess. Dissipated life? Huh?

If you push "precious" to exteme, you would get that. A person will never get rid of the pain of lost if he fully understand what death means to him. That's the boundary of human emotions without belief.
0 Replies
 
wwlcj1982
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 08:24 pm
Doktor S wrote:
Quote:

As for Juses Christ, he is not human, otherwise he is merely a crazyman just because he preached that he himself was the god and he was willing to die for saving humans from the sin by sheddng his blood on cross.

Yes, it is much easier to believe he must have been a supernatural uberbeing, than to believe he was a regular guy with ego issues.
Personally I choose option C - literary invention.

No, it's the hardest thing to accept supernatural phenomenon, if you base your belief on ration.

If you choose "literary invetion", then you would encounter the question that how can somethng fictioned become religion. I'm working on this thing. But evidences seem to support that it's impossible. I'm not quite sure though.
0 Replies
 
wwlcj1982
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 09:06 pm
Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
wwlcj1982 wrote:
I'm afraid you didn't get my point. Wolf_ODonnell.
I'm not quite sure the statement "goodness" equates with "conformity" is right or not. Because in my opinion "goodness" does not only mean the knowledge of goodness which one should abtain by reasoning, but also refer to the self-knowing of goodness which I believe does not come from the education or any reasoning.


You missed my point. I never stated goodness meant the knowledge of goodness. In fact, goodness is anything but. It is acting on the knowledge.


Yes, you never said it. This is not my intention.
Goodness is not the act on the knowledge. Goodness is that you are willing to act on the knowledge. That's difference.
"goodness" equates with "conformity" does not have this meaning.

Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
wwlcj1982 wrote:

The fact is that the knowledge of goodness you get from reasoning will not ensure you to do the good thing.



Nor will the self-knowing goodness. Case in point, look at any anti-Semite or black-hating bigot. Self-knowing of goodness is no better.


Not unless the self-knowing comes from the God, who believed by Christian that he is complete righteous and good.

Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
wwlcj1982 wrote:

Actually they are not goodness at all. Without higher standards, Humans behavior would subject to the laws of benefing himself at whatever it costs.



Yet somehow the animals that don't have these higher standards care for others and exhibit some sense of altruism. Confucianism is an atheistic belief that sets standards similar to those in any other religion you can find. They're clearly not higher standards, yet they achieve the same thing.

Furthermore, as there is no concept of Heaven and Hell with the atheistic belief, there isn't the chance that people might do something for a reward and not for the act itself.

My mistake. I was supposed to use higher divinity instead of "higher standards". Standards wil never be the point. In Christianity belief, humans are created in the image of God who is pure good. The believer will get Holy spirit which would work in themselves to make sure they are on their road to the good. And they will naturally know goodness through it(self-knowing, maybe it's not the right word?). As for the Ten Commandmens, God set it to let humans know that you are sinned and would never be saved without the blood of Juses Christ. Therefore, to a Christian, Ten Commandents is not the way to goodness, humans can't be good himself, even by acting obeying Ten Commandents.

Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
wwlcj1982 wrote:

I don't know that you'v ever read the Bible or know anything about Christianity at all.
]


An unwarranted assumption. Just because I disagree with you does not mean I do not know anything about Christianity at all. I can prove that I know something about Christianity.

Jesus was crucified on the cross and Christians say that it was meant to be and that he died for our sins. It is said that through that act, he saved us all etc. etc.

I'm sorry for that. no offence. are you a believer? if not, then you are not saved according to the bible.

Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
wwlcj1982 wrote:

According to the Bible, afterlife is not a reward, it's the real thing no matter that you are firm beliver or not(the believer will go to heaven and nobeliever will go to hell).



It still doesn't prevent it from being a reward.

If the Bible is the truth, and Chrianity God is real, then it's not a reward.

Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
wwlcj1982 wrote:

And the reason that a Christian go to the heaven is not the reward that he do everything according to the Ten Commandments, just that he believe that God is real thing and he would like to live in Juses Christ(I'm not very sure about the original words).


That is doctrine

"But now, apart form law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousnessof God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe."[ROMANS 3:21 ]

"Therefore just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by the one man's disobeience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be the righteous. Buth law came in, with the result that the trepass multiplied but where sin increased , grace abonded all the more, so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also excercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Juses Christ our Lord." [ROMANS 5:18]


Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
wwlcj1982 wrote:
And Buddhist believes afterlife too, not because it's the reward given by whatever the God.


Your grammar is starting to break down. Buddhists believe in reincarnation. The Nirvana they speak of equates more to nothingness than an afterlife.

I looked it up on an English dictionary.
afterlife: A life believed to follow death.
I guess it can mean spiritual life or life with blood and bodies.

Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
wwlcj1982 wrote:

The reason why I said life is meaningless without afterlife is that you can't solve the problem where did you come from and where will you go after death.



We still can't. Just because you believe the afterlife is there, doesn't mean it is. Just because someone says its there, doesn't mean it is.

A life can still be meaningless with an afterlife, something you don't deny, I suppose. An afterlife therefore does not mean give a life meaning. It does not give a life purpose. It gives the person somewhere to go after they dead, but it does not give them meaning or purpose.

Take a Christian that doesn't follow any of Christ's teachings, but only believes that Jesus is his Saviour, that Jesus is the Son of God and that only through Jesus will he have salvation. He doesn't give to charity. He doesn't do anything to help anyone.

What purpose does his life have then? What was the meaning of his life? He still goes into the afterlife according to you, and if you believe in Hell, then he goes into the afterlife even if he sinned and doesn't get to Heaven.

He had none.

The existence of the afterlife didn't give his life any purpose or meaning.

You are right. Merely an afterlife can't have any meaning, but the Chrianity kind of afterlife can, by being the pure good and perfect.
0 Replies
 
wwlcj1982
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 09:40 pm
Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
"We still can't. Just because you believe the afterlife is there, doesn't mean it is. Just because someone says its there, doesn't mean it is. "
If afterlife has been proved illusive, then I will not believe it, becasue a person can't believe in something illusive. If not, then afterlife is the truth to me. It's not that someone says it's there, it's that one believe it's there.

Why don't you get it. Can you prove this world is real? You can't, but you believe it's real because no evidences so far have disproved it.
0 Replies
 
wwlcj1982
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 09:53 pm
Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
I just realised that one of my responses got cut off... specifically the one that staets solely "That is doctrine". Unfortunately, I can't remember what it was exactly I wanted to say in response, so ignore those three words.


Sorry didn't see it. I was so overwhelmed by so many English words.
0 Replies
 
Doktor S
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 10:22 pm
wwlcj1982 wrote:
If you choose "literary invetion", then you would encounter the question that how can somethng fictioned become religion. I'm working on this thing. But evidences seem to support that it's impossible. I'm not quite sure though.


Of course it is impossible. Thor and Odin are chillin in valhalla right now, knockin' back pints o mead, whilst Vishnu flails her many arms wildly, warning of danger.
0 Replies
 
timberlandko
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 11:21 pm
wwlcj1982 wrote:
Why don't you get it. Can you prove this world is real? You can't, but you believe it's real because no evidences so far have disproved it.

A muddled assertion. All evidence available, empirical, deducible, and inducible, experiential, referential, and inferentional, indicates that to within a degree of probability vanishingly short of absolute certainty "this world" is "real"; it is not that " ... no evidences so far have disproved it ... ", it is that all evidence available, empirical, deducible, and inducible, experiential, referential, and inferentional, supports the propostion that "this world" is "real", while no evidence, empirical, deducible, or inducible, experiential, referential, or inferentional, none whatsoever - zip, zilch, zero, as in "ain't any" - contraindicates it - a very different circumstance, one which renders illogical any argument against physical reality as we observe and define it.

Conversely, for the proposition you forward, all evidence available, empirical, deducible, and inducible, experiential, referential, and inferentional, indicates that to within a degree of probability vanishingly short of absolute certainty, "that world" is not real, while in support of your proposition there is no evidence available, empirical, deducible, or inducible, experiential, referential, or inferentional, none whatsoever - zip, zilch, zero, as in "ain't any" - which would indicate for it - a circumstance which poses immense difficulty for any argument in support of your proposition.

Your proposition may be presented, and on these boards has been presented by many - but none on these boards has correctly or successfully argued that proposition; the forwarding of your proposition has been apart from the evidenced and the rational. As offered here, by those who have undertaken the effort, your proposition proceeds from myth, conjecture, assertion, preference, and assumption, not from observation, investigation, deduction, confirmation, and assessment. You offer an emotional guess, not a reasoned conclusion. You present agenda, not argument, you preach, you do not persuade.

I submit that religious faith cannot be differentiated in objective, academically sound, forensically valid manner from superstition.
0 Replies
 
wwlcj1982
 
  1  
Reply Sun 27 Aug, 2006 11:54 pm
timberlandko wrote:
wwlcj1982 wrote:
Why don't you get it. Can you prove this world is real? You can't, but you believe it's real because no evidences so far have disproved it.

A muddled assertion. All evidence available, empirical, deducible, and inducible, experiential, referential, and inferentional, indicates that to within a degree of probability vanishingly short of absolute certainty "this world" is "real"; it is not that " ... no evidences so far have disproved it ... ", it is that all evidence available, empirical, deducible, and inducible, experiential, referential, and inferentional, supports the propostion that "this world" is "real", while no evidence, empirical, deducible, or inducible, experiential, referential, or inferentional, none whatsoever - zip, zilch, zero, as in "ain't any" - contraindicates it - a very different circumstance, one which renders illogical any argument against physical reality as we observe and define it.

Conversely, for the proposition you forward, all evidence available, empirical, deducible, and inducible, experiential, referential, and inferentional, indicates that to within a degree of probability vanishingly short of absolute certainty, "that world" is not real, while in support of your proposition there is no evidence available, empirical, deducible, or inducible, experiential, referential, or inferentional, none whatsoever - zip, zilch, zero, as in "ain't any" - which would indicate for it - a circumstance which poses immense difficulty for any argument in support of your proposition.

Your proposition may be presented, and on these boards has been presented by many - but none on these boards has correctly or successfully argued that proposition; the forwarding of your proposition has been apart from the evidenced and the rational. As offered here, by those who have undertaken the effort, your proposition proceeds from myth, conjecture, assertion, preference, and assumption, not from observation, investigation, deduction, confirmation, and assessment. You offer an emotional guess, not a reasoned conclusion. You present agenda, not argument, you preach, you do not persuade.

I submit that religious faith cannot be differentiated in objective, academically sound, forensically valid manner from superstition.


I'm sorry. I don't quite follow you. Why do you think my proposition are not rational. All the evidences you gathered are from this world. How can you prove the reality of this world by evidences gathered from this world?


I have already implied the difference between the "superstition" and "religious faith". As soon as the "religious faith" is disproved, it's superstition, and we should abandon it. Otherwise, it's not.
0 Replies
 
fresco
 
  1  
Reply Mon 28 Aug, 2006 12:19 am
On the question of "reality"...

IMO the nail in the coffin of "the rationality of religion" is the lack of agreement between believers. Views about "the physical world" change...but they change in flexible unison give or take an inevitable time lag as "knowledge" filters through. Religious beliefs also change despite the futile attempts of believers to ossify their particular versions in "holy scripture". The changes here are divergent which is a logical consequence of multifarious reinterpretation of "the word" in adaptation to shifting cultural allegiances. Those who do not successfully adapt and hold their particular version to be "the Truth" can become culturally isolated in an inappropriate time-warp and blinkered or belligerent with respect to change.
0 Replies
 
timberlandko
 
  1  
Reply Mon 28 Aug, 2006 01:21 am
wwlcj1982 wrote:
I'm sorry. I don't quite follow you.

That's unsurprising to the point of predictability.

Quote:
Why do you think my proposition are not rational.

For the simple reasons that it does not conform to the rational and does conform to the irrational. Thats just the way religion works, it is emotional, not rational.

Quote:
All the evidences you gathered are from this world. How can you prove the reality of this world by evidences gathered from this world?

Thats the way evidence works - and thats the way the real world - as we observe, understand, and define it - works. Thats the way work works, that is work. It is real - as we observe, understand, and define "real", and that is why the real world works as it does. Matter and energy can be and are observed to be and to behave as they do and are understood to be and to do. Their properties and attributes are consistent, they conform to prior observation and to prediction, in such regard they are to the best of our ability to discern constant throughout the observable universe. A hydrogen atom and its constituent particles and forces here is no different from a hydrogen atom and its constituent particles and forces billions of light years from here. The math works.

The religionist proposition you forward, by definition, is "unreal", it is a game. There is no math to it.


Quote:
I have already implied the difference between the "superstition" and "religious faith".

No, most emphatically and explicitly, you have not.

Quote:
As soon as the "religious faith" is disproved, it's superstition, and we should abandon it. Otherwise, it's not.

You have that exactly backwards; the burden of proof falls to the affirmative case. The requirement is not that religion be disproved, but that it be proved. Absent proof, a proposition is but an assertion, at best an assumption, effectively it is conjecture, speculation, it is a claim, and nothing more. Incumbent on the one making the assertion, forwarding the proposition, making the claim, is the obligation to validate the premise or premises foundational to the proposition at discussion. In the pertinent discussions on these boards to date, none promoting the religionist proposition have validated - established - the primary foundational premise of that proposition, nor any subordinate premise dependent therefrom. The question remains unresolved in every particular.

Let me make it easy for you. I will stipulate to the possibility of a god or gods or something of the like. Further, I will stipulate to the possibility there may be something which meets the parameters you have proposed for an afterlife. Further yet, I will stipulate to the possibility not just any but in specific your particular religious concept may be valid.

There you go - 3 big hurdles out of your way. Now, prove there be a god, gods, or something of the like, prove there be an afterlife consistent with the parameters you propose, and prove your particular religious concept to be valid. I'm willing to be affected through persuasion; are you capable of effecting persuasion?

Now, pending persuasion, I submit once more that religious faith and superstition cannot be differentiated fro one another in objective, academically sound, forensically valid manner.
0 Replies
 
 

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