Religion is a dirty word. XP

[Daytripper]

What you say has no bearing on what I said... It is not an explanation. In other words Im as far as I was at post one. And yes, part of what I said supported what you said? So? I have to disagree with everything?

Start explaining, if you want to discuss. I give the ball back to you. Your post was badly written.

[Sir Rebrl]

You connected your logical fallacy point to the rest of the argument, not separating it out as an agreement rather than a disagreement.

How does what I said have no bearing on what you said?

You say I connected free will with a deity. I respond by quoting myself and repeating twice that I'm not talking about a deity at any point other than referring to the Christian God. I said again I use the word God because it's an easy word that most closely describes the energy/consciousness-collective and it's easier for most people to immediately understand than energy/consciousness collective. Clearly I need to just say it out because some people can't separate the word God from the definition of deity.

And you didn't answer my question.

Such a state can also be reached with meditation. In other words, it is religion, a practice. Something with no bearing on the supernatural per se.

What are you referring to as religion? I ask because for one, meditation is not religion, and two, religion involves the supernatural/divine by definition.


My post wasn't poorly written. Your argument is so poorly thought through that you have trouble responding when I tear that argument down. Seriously. Read everything. Think for a moment. Connect the dots. Then reply.

[Daytripper]

This is not a reply, rather I am acknowledging I have read your last post and I will not continue this type discussion. Clearly you still have not explained what you mean and you are demanding a reply from me on a later question.

[Sir Rebrl]

You're not even specifying what you need explained. You're being ridonkulous. See how I quote what my question is regarding? Works a lot better than vaguely throwing out a request for an explanation when there are multiple points per post.

[Chemist]

Over the past year and a few months I have felt things beyond the physical. I have had spiritual - not religious, spiritual - experiences profound and clear enough for me to build a solid belief system upon. Most importantly, everything surrounding the central tenets of my belief system is flexible to accommodate for new experience.

  As those experiences are a subjective matter, doesn't that mean your belief system (and any of its kind) is not telling anyone anything objective? The problem I see with believing subjective fairy tales is that if everyone thought that way then no one would be looking for the objective answers that ultimately help us advance civilisation.

  If free will doesn't exist, nothing we do matters to us in any real way cause it's all cause and effect and our desires have no real bearing.

  I tend to differ. I don't care whether or not there is free will; what I do will always matter to me. (At least to the extent that "I" have a say in. I detest fatalism.)

  So does this make me capable of thinking about free will in ways you can not ( =without discarding possibilities) ? According to what you've told us, yes. Now here comes the fun part: since you say you believe in free will you should be able to choose to think about these things without becoming "too depressed to care". Think about it: if there's no predetermined reason for it that you don't have control over, then it's a choice you'd be making to fall into depression.

I'd like to point out free and clear from the rest of my post, so it's really obvious, the point of this topic was never to discuss my spirituality. If it were, I would have titled it more appropriately. The point was that religion is outdated and fear-wielding and has no positive effect that is exclusive to itself.

  You say we should believe in the supernatural without resorting to religion. I (and several other posters in this thread) say we shouldn't believe in the supernatural at all.

I cannot prove anything exists besides my mind.  I think, therefore, I am.

Actually you can't prove that either. What if you merely believe "you" are thinking,  when those thoughts of "yours" are actually projected to you by an external demon?

" "I" think, therefore something is." should be ok, though.

[Sir Rebrl]

  As those experiences are a subjective matter, doesn't that mean your belief system (and any of its kind) is not telling anyone anything objective? The problem I see with believing subjective fairy tales is that if everyone thought that way then no one would be looking for the objective answers that ultimately help us advance civilisation.

  I tend to differ. I don't care whether or not there is free will; what I do will always matter to me. (At least to the extent that "I" have a say in. I detest fatalism.)

  So does this make me capable of thinking about free will in ways you can not ( =without discarding possibilities) ? According to what you've told us, yes. Now here comes the fun part: since you say you believe in free will you should be able to choose to think about these things without becoming "too depressed to care". Think about it: if there's no predetermined reason for it that you don't have control over, then it's a choice you'd be making to fall into depression.

  You say we should believe in the supernatural without resorting to religion. I (and several other posters in this thread) say we shouldn't believe in the supernatural at all.

They are incredibly subjective. Yep. As I said in an earlier post, a vague spirituality is one alternative to religion. And I never said it had to be mine. Anyone can construct their own subjective spirituality. Part of the beauty of it.

How does belief in the supernatural negate thirst for scientific advancement? I may be very serious about my beliefs regarding the supernatural, but I'm also a total science geek. Objectivity and subjectivity in ultimately separate areas of existence are not mutually exclusive.

...There's either free will or a lack thereof. I can contemplate both, I just choose to disregard one because believing in it is pointless.

Did I say anything about depression? Nope. Nothing to do with depression. I just don't care to believe in a lack of free will because then you can't take real credit for anything you do. It was all pre-determined. Point. Less. Not even depressing. Empty.

Did I say you should believe in anything in particular? Nuh-uh. I hate people who push their beliefs on others. I just want to give people reason to put religion aside and adopt anything else that has the same positive effects. Spirituality was my example because it's what I have personal experience with.


People. Stop putting words in my mouth. I say what I say, nothing more, nothing less. Don't add to or subtract from my posts. Makes for a flimsily constructed, easily destructed argument.

[Chemist]

As I said in an earlier post, a vague spirituality is one alternative to religion. And I never said it had to be mine. Anyone can construct their own subjective spirituality. Part of the beauty of it.

   I have no problem with secular spirituality, but I maintain people shouldn't believe in the supernatural without evidence - and your suggeson that such a belief is fine still runs afoul of that. Also, you just implied other alternatives to religion. Care to elaborate on that?

How does belief in the supernatural negate thirst for scientific advancement? I may be very serious about my beliefs regarding the supernatural, but I'm also a total science geek. Objectivity and subjectivity in ultimately separate areas of existence are not mutually exclusive.

  I guess you're right there, but if you take on a distorted rather than a rational view of the world then that just can't be good when you're trying to design and perform objective experiments.

...There's either free will or a lack thereof. I can contemplate both, I just choose to disregard one because believing in it is pointless.

Did I say anything about depression? Nope. Nothing to do with depression. I just don't care to believe in a lack of free will because then you can't take real credit for anything you do. It was all pre-determined. Point. Less. Not even depressing. Empty.

  I think we're somewhat close on this one. Only that I say one should believe the truth, whatever it may be. I'm of the opinion that even if you suddenly got to learn with absolute certainty that there is no free will, you shouldn't let that change anything about the way you act, behave, think, etc. If the reason you've acted ethically up to that point in life is that you've been following the principles of ethics, then since those haven't changed neither should your actions. I just don't see a lack of free will changing anything for me. Or can you tell me a good reason why I'd want to change in such a scenario?

I just want to give people reason to put religion aside and adopt anything else that has the same positive effects. Spirituality was my example because it's what I have personal experience with.

Ok ... good luck with that - I think you'll need it.

[LongDono]

Just know this, if you had not put "Organized" as your first word you would be reading about a 1500 word post telling you how wrong you are, but because Organized was your first word I will not.
My religion might be easy to guess at this point but I think I will also make a debate point for the other side as well.
You have made a generalization of all "Organized" religion in your first post and "It uses oppressive fear tactics to keep people obedient". The only issue with that is the idea of being able to repent for ones sins and also not all Organized religion is like that. Oh ya and Generalizations are almost never a good thing.

[Daxx]

You keep accusing me of claiming proofs and disproofs. When did I ever claim either? I didn't. I clearly stated I was assuming one of multiple possibilities for the sake of my train of thought.

You are choosing to believe that something is true just because you want to. To rephrase my point the other way around, believing that free will exists just because you want to is not logically valid. Implicit in your choice is that you are making judgements about truth based on your personal opinion.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is as real as the Christian God, my friend. XD

Yes, and it's as real as your pantheistic conception.

Now, do you have any solid arguments besides "There's no physical proof!" or claiming I said things I didn't? You know, something original, valid, and relevant?

The burden of proof is on you because you are making a positive assertion about the world. You've not provided any reasoning or evidence that supports your claim over the alternative hypotheses. Therefore there is no reason for anyone to believe that your assertions are true. This is a very simple concept, and is quite valid and relevant. Please try to keep up.

[Ele124]

@Sir Rebryl: Sorry, but I had a tl;dr vibe through a lot of this, you were making the same point a lot. I agree that what a person believes the world to be will have a massive effect upon how they act. However, as Gl1tch most wonderfully explained, a persons beliefs are very unique, which can lead to some interesting consequences.

@ Daxx: We seem to be going for a philisophical rather than a scientific discussion here, a model which is perhaps closer to the "truth" (whatever that is , but with far less absolutes. When you get right down to it, if you cant connect somthing to "I think, therefore I am", then your gonna have problems proving anything. Which is why its easier to just muse about stuff in philosophy

@ Gl1tch: Kudos for that post!

[Daxx]

@ Daxx: We seem to be going for a philisophical rather than a scientific discussion here, a model which is perhaps closer to the "truth" (whatever that is , but with far less absolutes. When you get right down to it, if you cant connect somthing to "I think, therefore I am", then your gonna have problems proving anything. Which is why its easier to just muse about stuff in philosophy

I think you need to revisit your terms here - by "philosophical", do you mean "completely unrelated to the real world whatsoever"? Because drawing a distinction between scientific rationalism and philosophy isn't really useful unless you exclude all empiricism from philosophy altogether - which is not the definition of philosophy. From an epistemological standpoint it's extremely difficult to justify any position which cannot be substantiated by an empirical link. Try reading some philosophy of science; start with Popper and work onwards.

[Sir Rebrl]

@Chemist -
I have my personal, subjective evidence for my own belief system, and I'm not trying to push any of my particular beliefs on any of you. I say adopt them if you want you, don't if you don't.

As far as scientific experiments go, I don't expect science to reach a point any time soon if ever where it can (dis/)prove my beliefs. Therefore, if I were going to perform any experiments, I would set aside those beliefs and consider only factors with physical evidence of their existence.

*shrugs* If I did change upon learning with certainty of a lack of free will, it wouldn't be my fault. XD
Till then, I'll stubbornly refuse to believe in an absence of free will.

@LongDono -
I suppose I did overgeneralize a bit. I really only have anything against the fear-wielding elements of religion, and because of the way I personally think, I can't imagine a religion with a fear-wielding element surviving as is if that element were removed. In any case, it's true that not all religions are as fear-powered as I implied.

@Daxx -
I choose what to contemplate based on what I feel like contemplating at any moment. I do contemplate things outside of my belief system, I just haven't posted them. I choose what to believe based on subjective personal experience that has presented clear and moving subjective personal evidence to me. Yah, it's subjective and personal. Deal with it, so is reality.

If you have seen or felt the presence of the FSM, then yah, it is. ^_^

The burden of proof is on those attempting to prove something. I don't have to prove I'm right, and I don't even have to defend the potential for my beliefs to be true because a disproof is impossible at this time, at the very least.

@Ele124 -
I have been making the same points a lot. It's annoying that I have to, you know?

@Daxx
Empiricism, with a touch of the "more rational" philosophical mindset for flavor. This is philosophical musing to the core, deal with it. If you don't buy it, go google "Define: empiricism"