Why I am not a Christian

[Whaleboy]

Yes, it would be more than enough for me if I was God/Jesus. I'd smile on the atheist who lives a good life and frown on the "believer" who didn't. Many Christians argue that faith somehow leads them to live the good life but faith can only "do" that if this faith is in the validity of Jesus' teachings, an understanding of those teachings, and an adherence to those teachings. If you don't know what behavior Jesus expected of us, what good is faith? That's the dilemma I think Christians face when they argue faith is all they need: why did Jesus teach people about morality if he didn't expect moral behavior from his followers?

I think all of that assumes that it is "good behaviour" so to speak that will get someone into heaven whereas some interpretations of the Jewish notion of hell do not hold that, rather hell is more a living suffering of being far from God but you'd go to heaven regardless of actions. If God is supposed to be omniscient then surely he's be aware of causes and consequences, in the way which we regard as deterministic, so the relative "good" or "evil" of an action is irrelevant in light of those amoral set of consequences. However, I don't think that god exists, I think that the Torah/bible is an artificial concoction and whether or not Jesus lived, enough interpretation and editorialising has occured that his own "teachings" can be regarded most safely as politically-motivated fabrications.

I found myself agreeing with it until he went off the deep end and blamed all evil in the world on religion. I have also thought and believed that the impulse towards good, for helping the poor and the downtrodden in the West came from Christ, even if the same thought had existed elsewhere in the world before. Russell seemed to say that it was religion that opposed reforms to help these very people, etc., and it the source of cruelty, etc.

Hmmm an interesting interpretation. I don't see Russell blaming all evil in the world on religion/Christianity, rather saying that it has had numerous negative consequences and was based upon fear. Indeed knowing something about Russells work I'm very much inclined to say he didn't think it evil, or him a "hater", though those have been many of the fallacious attacks levelled against him, particularly in the US when he was denied a teaching position at the City College of New York because of this and other pieces.

He says that fear is the source of cruelty, as well as the source of religion, thus it is unsurprising that they go hand in hand, but it is important to make the distinction.... cruelty and religion are siblings; the children of fear, cruelty is not the child of religion.

Yes, and yet many Christians deny that "deeds" matter, just faith.

To me, that seems more consistent. One must always separate out the pure "faith" and theistic elements from the social control and manipulation, which requires getting away from the notion that the bible is the word of god. I should consider works like the Ten Commandments and the 613 rules in the OT (not least Leviticus), to be that social control, someone attempting to reconcile belief in God and their understanding of that, with their own morality. After all, people throughout history have attempted to claim that their moral system is the best and "god given" in a manner of speaking. It seems to me that the two may well have grown up together along with the entire history of Semitic monotheism but there is that necessary separation between the two that favours individual interpretation and less reliance upon an artificial bible.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Agnostic = Uncertain of God's existence, which obviously favours the atheistic view but leaves the door open for such as polytheism, trancendentalism as well as humanism and naturalism. Could also be a theist "in between" the organised religions, say, both Jews and Christians are monotheists, it follows that one could be undecided between the two and still have a belief in God, I would qualify that as agnostic.

Atheist to me is simply the position that there is no God, which is different to a belief that there is no God, which obviously runs contrary to the science and reason at the heart of atheism.

Ngh, sorry about taking so long to respond. I wrote out a huuuuuge reply yesterday...only to find that my computer could no longer find the address apolyton.net. Lousy piece of grumble grumble...anyway, I'll answer Boris's in here too, in that I don't see the difference between his definition of agnostic and mine. Maybe it's semantics getting in the way. But agnostic is, by your definition, the people who might check "religious-not specified" on survey forms? People who don't know what they believe in, so to speak? My dad thinks of himself as agnostic, and so I was raised to consider the difference between agnostic and atheist as a reflection of how obnoxious and pushy you were about your belief. I know that's not the real definition, but I find it useful to think atheist:agnostic::"fundie":christian.

Ah interesting way to put it. I hold that faith and reason, when considered together, are not in fact opposition, though take each and by virtue of itself relative to the other, it is dualistic. In this context they comprise the other. I would have thought however that saying one is between "reason is useless" and "reason is everything", one would have to assume that reason and faith are dualistically opposed?

Not so much. I was only responding to the attitude, real or only perceived by my part, that rational exploration can provide all the answers to everything. Last time that sort of silly utopianism came down the pike, it took two world wars to break the fallacy, and remind people, however painfully, that human beings are not as basically rational as we suppose. Faith is not opposed to reason, but people who have faith tend to share my opinion that human reason is not as clear and definite as it's made out to be by pipe-dreams of pseudo-enlightenment philosophy.

To say something is flawed needs some frame of reference with which the object (us/human nature) can be said to be relative, or compared to. Since I lack that frame of reference as a relativist, I have to conclude that human nature is not "flawed", resulting in individual subjectivism. Think of it as a chaotic system, which we both possess, but you would have an objective attractor, I would have an individual attractor.

I suppose the grounds for comparison is only the idea of humanism and secular potential presented by UR and others. I think it sometimes relies on a boogeyman mentality just as bad as the worst fundamentalism, only without as much internal consistency. It stems from two principles: Firstly, religion and ancient hokey superstition have long prevented the free exercise of the human mind and spirit. Human beings have the innate ability to better themselves. Secondly, religions were just inventions of human beings. But those two principles contradict each other. Given the universality of the rise of religious conviction across time and culture, it's pretty safe to say that it's an emergent property of the human mind, and there's no reason to think human nature has itself changed.

So it would seem that, even if religion is a disease, the human mind has an innate and irrational tendency towards self-destructive behavior anyway, and so the "potential" is a lie to begin with. We make our crutches quite willingly-even hardcore atheists tend to treat their atheism as a different kind of religious dogma, with the idea of "primitive superstitions and narrow-mindedness," or something similar, standing in for the devil. But faith can't be a demon afflicting a mentally virginal humanity AND an invention of humanity at the same time, can it?

Your standard atheist worldview doesn't allow for real demons, or anything supernatural, but then you run into the fundamental statement of most any religion, that human beings are flawed. It's obvious that all people have strong urges, though they sometimes suppress them, to do crazy crap, and that's why I say humanism is a crock. It's based on wishful thinking, on solving a problem by ignoring it.

This is interesting. For those that can't be bothered to analyse the rest of the debate, Russell accepts that God does not exist provisionally in the qualified sense as opposed to the definite scientific quantitative. I on the other hand go further and say God does not exist is the quantitatitative scientific sense for the reasons described earlier when we touched on thermodynamics (logical frameworks et al). Ultimately though I think he accepts the relativism of the argument, so by that definition, I would count as an agnostic, though since the definitions differ, I consider myself atheist. Still, that's just semantics, my position is the same regardless.

What exactly is the Principia Ethica of Moore that he references? Can you give me a Cliff Notes blurb? I want to hear this rational, completely non-theistic idea of good and evil.

[Whaleboy]

But agnostic is, by your definition, the people who might check "religious-not specified" on survey forms? People who don't know what they believe in, so to speak? My dad thinks of himself as agnostic, and so I was raised to consider the difference between agnostic and atheist as a reflection of how obnoxious and pushy you were about your belief. I know that's not the real definition, but I find it useful to think atheist:agnostic::"fundie":christian.

Not quite, agnostic to me is (ignoring polytheism and transcendentalist atheism for the minute) what lies between specific theism and atheism. Consider that the dictionary and etymological definition of "agnostic" is that nothing can be known of the existence of God, existence or properties. The agnosticism that favours atheism takes into account Occams razor and Wittgensteins "about which we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence", in which category you could place Russell (in the light of this I have changed my mind, Russell is an agnostic). The agnosticism that might favour theism is going to be therefore the indecision between different organised religions or the nature of theism. You could possibly twist that to mean a choice between theism (in given incarnations) and atheism, hence my earlier statement.

Your "atheist:agnostic::"fundie":christian" is interesting, and a consistent, thorough and commendable comparison but I disagree. Atheism to me does not necessitate or even imply a dogma, despite the actions of many of its "followers" (for want of a better word for obvious reasons) because it bears more resemblance to a scientific proposition or scientific theory, based on given evidence. It needn't be an implication from agnosticism since it's perfectly possible to give reasons why God cannot necessarily exist, instead of the position of refuting the arguments for God's existence, as Russell does. Because of this, I personally am best placed between the agnosticism that favours atheism and atheism proper, though this has been an extremely interesting area of discourse, and has been of immense help in clarifying my own position to myself . I'm perfectly willing to change my mind in a debate, which is something of a double-edged sword.

Faith is not opposed to reason, but people who have faith tend to share my opinion that human reason is not as clear and definite as it's made out to be by pipe-dreams of pseudo-enlightenment philosophy.

Ah what I mean is faith and reason are dualistic with a given focus. Obviously, one can have the capacity for great reason and great faith as an individual, but toward a given end, say God, one undermines the other. God himself would surely be devalued (value being a function of supply and demand) if his existence could easily be reasoned, whereby surely for his infinite nature that requires nothing short of faith, which introduces other problems (i.e., he cannot objectively exist) but that's the faith-reason distinction. The reason why I say that they are not absolutely dualistic (merely contextually) is that in my opinion, they are composed of the same thing, call it love and logic or Apollo and Dionysis, the list goes on but let's snap out of this poetic metaphysicism .

I also think it's dangerous to devalue the work of the enlightenment philosophers, again there are problems with labelling the entire "field" or all the thinkers with the same brush without consideration and intepretation of their works. My personal approach is that each idea has it's workable context.

I suppose the grounds for comparison is only the idea of humanism and secular potential presented by UR and others

Very true, though I'm no humanist! The human spirit seems like bull**** to me, and our ability to better ourselves basically boils down to more efficient ways to kill each other. I do agree with your assessment here though, and on the personal level wish to reaffirm the fact that I distance myself from the dogmatic atheists.

Your standard atheist worldview doesn't allow for real demons, or anything supernatural, but then you run into the fundamental statement of most any religion, that human beings are flawed. It's obvious that all people have strong urges, though they sometimes suppress them, to do crazy crap, and that's why I say humanism is a crock. It's based on wishful thinking, on solving a problem by ignoring it.

Agreed, however religion (in the "return to bondage" definition i.e. organised religion) to me needn't be the answer or the conclusion, rather, we need to get away from the notion of "all for one and one for all" and recognise that we're at best diluding ourselves and at worst committing intellectual dishonesty if we claim that we're all out to make the world a better place for our children. That seems to favour more trancendental religions for spiritually minded indiduals, i.e. buddhism, satanism, though my relativism causes me to realise that is just my view and thus I cannot use it as a "recommendation" or say one "ought" to be this way in the light of these circumstances. Ultimately all we are doing here is representing ourselves, which is something that the use of "isms" tends to inhibit, which is quite harmful sometimes in my view.

What exactly is the Principia Ethica of Moore that he references? Can you give me a Cliff Notes blurb? I want to hear this rational, completely non-theistic idea of good and evil.

I'm not massively familiar with Moore, but I don't think that asking him to provide good and evil is a fair question to ask of him, nonetheless I shall attempt to summarise as best I can without resorting to evil, nasty google (evil = cookie f*ckage).

Actually screw that, it's 1.30AM, my antipsychotic is kicking in and so my very low levels of dopamine are telling me it's time to sleep. Wikipedia gives an article on ethical non-naturalism that seems at a glance quite a good summary, even though I find it doesn't explain the use of meta-ethics well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_non-naturalism

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Whaleboy

Your "atheist:agnostic::"fundie":christian" is interesting, and a consistent, thorough and commendable comparison but I disagree. Atheism to me does not necessitate or even imply a dogma, despite the actions of many of its "followers" (for want of a better word for obvious reasons) because it bears more resemblance to a scientific proposition or scientific theory, based on given evidence. It needn't be an implication from agnosticism since it's perfectly possible to give reasons why God cannot necessarily exist, instead of the position of refuting the arguments for God's existence, as Russell does. Because of this, I personally am best placed between the agnosticism that favours atheism and atheism proper, though this has been an extremely interesting area of discourse, and has been of immense help in clarifying my own position to myself . I'm perfectly willing to change my mind in a debate, which is something of a double-edged sword.

Anyone who thinks that athiesm is at all more scientific than theism is a fool who doesn't understand what science is and therefore is just as much against science as creationists.

Jon Miller

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Anyone who thinks that athiesm is at all more scientific than theism is a fool who doesn't understand what science is and therefore is just as much against science as creationists.

Care to explain?

[Jon Miller]

Sure.

What is science? Science has an hypothesis, a mathematical model, and than experiments that prove or disprove it.

So there are hypothesis's, that there is a God, or there is not a god or there are many gods. But where are the experiments that would prove or disprove it? I have not heard of a single scientific experiment that would set a lower bound or upper bound on the number of gods, much less show the existance or nonexistence of them.

The comparison to creationists is that creationsists claim they are scientific also. They are not (that does not make them wrong, it just means that they are based upon faith) as far as I can see.

The whole point is the science is based upon repeatable experiments. Which just don't exist as far as the god question is concerned.

Jon Miller

[Spiffor]

Thanks for your explanation

[Berzerker]

Belief in Jesus, as required for Christian salvation, has a specific meaning containing three parts: 1) Jesus was the promised Savior of the OT. 2) He was crucified as a blood sacrifice to redeem mankind, (and on a personal level, that He chose to do so for me) and 3) After three days in the tomb he was resurrected. These three things constitute ‘The Belief’ that leads to salvation. I think that is pretty much consistant throughout Christendom.
Again, I hope you catch the difference between following His precepts- which are required to be a disciple, and 'the belief' allowing for salvation.

So I can behave like scum and be saved and I can behave morally and not be saved? Jesus' largest audience was the sermon on the mount where he taught people how to behave morally with no mention of believing in him as messiah. Besides, the OT messiah meant king of the jews, not some savior of the world.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Elok
Agnostic=No belief in God, i.e. no decisive opinion on spirituality, doesn't care.
Atheist=Positively believes there is no God.
If not, what is the difference between the two by your definition?

Others have already explained this in great detail, let me add my $0.02.

Ask somebody the question "Do you believe in a god - any god, not just the Judeo-Christian one?"

If the answer is yes, the person is a theist. If the answer is no, the person is an atheist. If the answer is "I don't know" or "There is insufficient data," that person is an agnostic.

Atheism comes from adding the Greek root "a-," meaning "without," to the word theism. Thus, an atheist is somebody who holds no belief in a deity or a group of deities, and that is the broadest - and correct - definition of atheism. This is referred to as Weak (or Negative) Atheism.

Within the group of atheists some holds that there are good reasons to not believe in the existence of a god. This is known as Strong (or Positive) Atheism.

Whether a person is a Strong or Weak Atheist can be context sensitive. For example, somebody can be a Weak Atheist overall, but a Strong Atheist when it comes to the Judeo-Christianity god, as this entity is described by orthodox Christian doctrines (e.g. omnipotent etc.).

Originally posted by Elok
We often take our own prejudices and dress them up as "simple logic" to fight with

I can't see logic is the same as one's own prejudices. Logic is cold, mechanical, and precise. I see logic as a way of thinking. More precisely, the only way to think correctly, to derive correct conclusions from a set of premeses. Maybe you are right, logic is something to fight with, the only way to cut through nonsense and gibberish.

Originally posted by Elok
as in utilitarianism, which gives a high-minded aspect to morality without addressing the most basic aspect of its nature, namely why we need it.

Logic is not the the as any school of thought, be it moral theory, political philosophy, or other things you dream up. it merely is the foundation to build upon. Any of these theories can be refuted, but logic will always remain.

Originally posted by Elok
That phenomenon is an illustration of my point, in essence: we need, first and foremost, vigilance against the flaws of our own nature, because there is nobody else to watch them for us. And if you don't think human nature is flawed, there's hardly any point in continuing this discussion...

I wasn't saying human didn't have flaws. If we cannot rely on our rationality - on our own mind - to recognise our own shortcomings and to elavate us to higher levels, what can we rely on?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Anyone who thinks that athiesm is at all more scientific than theism is a fool who doesn't understand what science is and therefore is just as much against science as creationists.

Jon Miller

I disagree, wrt to negative atheism. Positive atheism may fit this bill, but not atheism that is a lack of belief in god(s).

It is perfectly scientific to not believe in something for which there is no evidence. Since you acknowledge in your explanation that there can be no scientific proof for god, then the most scientific position is to have no belief that god exists.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
What is science? Science has an hypothesis, a mathematical model, and than experiments that prove or disprove it.

As far as I know, one cannot disprove anything in science. A. A. Michaelson set out to look for aether in his famous, ingenuous experiment, but he couldn't find it. To the scientic community, it was a great shock - no evidence of ether meant it didn't exist.

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I have not heard of a single scientific experiment that would set a lower bound or upper bound on the number of gods, much less show the existance or nonexistence of them.

The only way to show something does not exist is the inability to find any evidence for that something. So far, we were unable to find any scientific evidence for any supernatural entities at all.

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Anyone who thinks that athiesm is at all more scientific than theism is a fool who doesn't understand what science is and therefore is just as much against science as creationists.

As I showed above, atheism is much closer to science than creationism - even though you are comparing apples and oranges.

Atheism, Positive: no evidence of god - god doesn't exist.
Science: no evidence of aether - aether doesn't exist.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

As far as I know, one cannot disprove anything in science. A. A. Michaelson set out to look for aether in his famous, ingenuous experiment, but he couldn't find it. To the scientic community, it was a great shock - no evidence of ether meant it didn't exist.

The only way to show something does not exist is the inability to find any evidence for that something. So far, we were unable to find any scientific evidence for any supernatural entities at all.

As I showed above, atheism is much closer to science than creationism - even though you are comparing apples and oranges.

Atheism, Positive: no evidence of god - god doesn't exist.
Science: no evidence of aether - aether doesn't exist.

No, you are wrong. Michaelson could develope an experiment to look for the ether, while I have not heard of any experiment that could look for a god. That is the difference. While you are correct that Michaelson not finding evidence of the ether did not disprove its existence (in fact there are some cosmologists who still play arround with the idea of an ether today), it did place bounds on it.

No experiment has ever been created that says anything about the existence of a god. There are no bounds that have been placed. As such it is very different than the ether.

Develope a good experiment to look for evidence of a god, and I will concede that you are being scientific. However, there has been none created to date (and personally I feel it would be impossible).

Another example, atoms/molecules seemed to be undivisible for the longest time. There was no evidence that they could be devided. It wasn't that they couldn't be devided (As we now know), it was just that no experiment could be forumated that could test it. Science only says things about stuff that can be tested, that is why most physicists consider string theory to be more mathematics than science (at this point in time, because currently we can't forumlate an experiment to test it, I however beleive that in the future we will be able to).

By claiming that science supports atheism you weaken science as much as the renaissance catholic church (by trying to use it to support your own ideology).

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


I disagree, wrt to negative atheism. Positive atheism may fit this bill, but not atheism that is a lack of belief in god(s).

It is perfectly scientific to not believe in something for which there is no evidence. Since you acknowledge in your explanation that there can be no scientific proof for god, then the most scientific position is to have no belief that god exists.

No it is not. Science does not deal with things that can not have experiments made about them.

Jon Miller

[Last Conformist]

I'm surprised that my post about the definition of "Christian" evoked such reactions. Well, I'll try and explain myself more clearly.

The question was "what is a Christian?". I suggested it was someone who believes that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. I think this a very reasonable definition - it agrees pretty well with everyday usage of the word, for instance in excluding Muslims, who, as was pointed out earlier in the thread, considers Jesus a prophet, but not the messiah. It also makes sense etymologically; "Christian", after all derives from Greek khristos "messiah".

But good or bad, it's just a definition, a man-made convention. Unless you hold a "pre-modern" world-view, that the universe at large cares what we call the parts, that things function differently depending how we name them, it simply cannot have anything to say about morality or salvation, still less about the meaningfulness of what someone did two thousand years ago.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
No, you are wrong. Michaelson could develope an experiment to look for the ether, while I have not heard of any experiment that could look for a god.

That's because science does not deal with the supernatural - science is based on naturalism. Thus, science doesn't care about god.

However, there's nothing that prevents anybody from constructing such an experiment using science methods.

Originally posted by Jon Miller
No experiment has ever been created that says anything about the existence of a god. There are no bounds that have been placed. As such it is very different than the ether.

While you are correct that there has not been any experiment that looks for god, the reason is god is irrelevant in science. I disagree that god is very different from aether. Fundamentally, both are concepts that have no evidence.

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Another example, atoms/molecules seemed to be undivisible for the longest time.

IIRC, the discovery of radioactivity by Becquerel was quite close to the discovery of atoms/molecules. Even though the concept of atom has been around for centuries, it was disregarded due to the dominance of Aristotle.

Originally posted by Jon Miller
By claiming that science supports atheism you weaken science as much as the renaissance catholic church (by trying to use it to support your own ideology).

You haven't countered the parallel I drew between aether and god, as I pointed out above.