Religion is instilled in us

Started by elnoor September 19th, 2014 10:43 AM
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Kenchiin

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I don't agree. You can believe whatever you want, of course, but that doesn't mean everyone believes in religion or something in particular.
Believing in science is also not the same, since religion and science are non-overlapping magisteria.

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elnoor

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Do you think that it requires faith to believe that when you jump in the air, you will fall to earth?
Yes, how far in the air are we talking about btw. Are you saying belief is not required because that is something that will for sure happen every time?

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Yes, how far in the air are we talking about btw. Are you saying belief is not required because that is something that will for sure happen every time?
As far as any human can jump, they will fall down.

Atheists don't say they don't believe in anything - they say that given the evidence we have now, God does not exist. Just like given the evidence we have now, you will fall back down when you jump. Just like given the evidence we have now, the sun will rise tomorrow. There's a difference between simply believing something is true, the definition of faith you're using, and believing something is true absent any evidence that it is, the definition of faith that most everyone else uses. This is why the term "leap of faith" exists; you are told that you'll be fine, but you have no evidence so your leap is based on faith. This is why people can take things "on faith" - that phrase means "without any evidence other than a person's word".

The only difference between Christians and atheists when it comes to faith in gods is that we believe in one less god than you do.


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Belief is human nature, we all tend to be attach to an ideology and a way of life. Even those who say they are atheist and don't believe in anything, is not being atheist in itself a belief a way of life that is followed.
It depends. If an agnostic leans towards or away from theism, it may be an ideology.
But, an Atheist does not belief in a deity, no strings attached
People may have their own, personal beliefs, but being an Atheist doesn't grant you some obscure identity.
Just because someone doesn't belief in God shouldn't predispose them to a certain way of life


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Zeffy

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I..I don't understand what you're trying to say. Religion is a form of belief, yes, but belief is not necessarily religion. Fundamentally, humans are a curious bunch. In order to satisfy this curiosity, we often end up believing rather than proving--because it's far easier to just believe, after all. I know I'm being too technical about this, but it's just baffling how you made a one-to-one correspondence between belief and religion when, in reality, it's far more complicated than that.

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Yes, how far in the air are we talking about btw. Are you saying belief is not required because that is something that will for sure happen every time?
I guess I see where you're coming from, but there's a difference between faith and fact. People don't have faith in facts, because they already know it to be true. Faith stems from uncertainty; things that aren't universally known.

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As far as any human can jump, they will fall down.
one day Zeus is going to smite you into dust as you jump and MOCK His Righteousness. You won't come back down. You'll won't touch the Earth. The god of vacuum cleaning will simply suck you into the air.

Religion is still something we feel is important enough to have in debate threads and so to some degree we still all feel strongly enough about our religion/lack of it to have to strut into these topics and scream science!!!/religion!!! a few times in slightly more sophisticated keystrokes.

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I don't agree. You can believe whatever you want, of course, but that doesn't mean everyone believes in religion or something in particular.
Believing in science is also not the same, since religion and science are non-overlapping magisteria.
But that is, in turn, what you believe in. Not needing to have any particular IS your belief. This proves that OP is right, if only because of a nice little loophole.

Livewire

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Not all beliefs are centered around a religion. You can be spiritual, believe in some form of an afterlife or a higher power without prescribing to any one religious belief or dogma. So, if anything is "instilled" in us, it would be a sense of spirituality, not specifically religion.
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I agree with your original post - as humans we tend to believe certain things. However, these do not necessarily have anything to do with with religion. People tell you something (often parents) and you take it on face value. A lot of wives tales continue to exist for this reason.

The placebo effect is also a good example of this type of belief. Who here has gone to the doctor with a cold (a viral infection) and left with a prescription for antibiotics (to treat a bacterial infection)? The antibiotics do nothing for the cold, yet some doctors prescribe them (because they're shortsighted idiots) to work as a placebo.

Yes, how far in the air are we talking about btw. Are you saying belief is not required because that is something that will for sure happen every time?
As it is the theory of gravity, it actually allows that possibility. We don't know for sure that one time you jump you won't come down, but all the evidence points to the contrary.

Tek

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Atheists don't say they don't believe in anything - they say that given the evidence we have now, God does not exist.

Did you mean to say that there is no scientific evidence proving God's existence?


Lack of proof is not proof of nonexistence. So to say that we have no scientific evidence of God's existence, and therefore God does not exist, well, that's a belief. It's certainly not good science, since the conclusion does not follow from the premise.




Besides that, spiritual questions are, by and large, outside the domain of scientific inquiry. I believe Einstein once said something along the lines of 'Science is not able to answer the question of God's existence, nor should it try to.'


There's a book called 'Quantum Questions' that contains the mystical insights shared by those who have pushed the boundaries of physics - Einstein, Schrodinger, Planck, etc. I find it fascinating and uplifting that the more deeply one penetrates into the nature of existence, the more one perceives some sort of Divine Order, a reality that transcends space and time.

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Did you mean to say that there is no scientific evidence proving God's existence?


Lack of proof is not proof of nonexistence. So to say that we have no scientific evidence of God's existence, and therefore God does not exist, well, that's a belief. It's certainly not good science, since the conclusion does not follow from the premise.




Besides that, spiritual questions are, by and large, outside the domain of scientific inquiry. I believe Einstein once said something along the lines of 'Science is not able to answer the question of God's existence, nor should it try to.'


There's a book called 'Quantum Questions' that contains the mystical insights shared by those who have pushed the boundaries of physics - Einstein, Schrodinger, Planck, etc. I find it fascinating and uplifting that the more deeply one penetrates into the nature of existence, the more one perceives some sort of Divine Order, a reality that transcends space and time.
Given the lack of evidence that it exists, unless evidence comes to light I will assume it doesn't. Just like I assume that there isn't a cosmic space kitten waiting outside my back door right now - my blinds are closed so technically there could be, but based on the lack of evidence for that viewpoint I'm going to go with no, there is no cosmic space kitten outside my back door.

The reason why I phrase it specifically that was is because it leaves it inherently open - if there begins to be a scientific consensus on God existing based on their inquiries, it allows my thoughts to change on the subject.


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Tek

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Given the lack of evidence that it exists, unless evidence comes to light I will assume it doesn't. Just like I assume that there isn't a cosmic space kitten waiting outside my back door right now - my blinds are closed so technically there could be, but based on the lack of evidence for that viewpoint I'm going to go with no, there is no cosmic space kitten outside my back door.

The reason why I phrase it specifically that was is because it leaves it inherently open - if there begins to be a scientific consensus on God existing based on their inquiries, it allows my thoughts to change on the subject.
I kind of figured that's what you meant. It would be most accurate to say something like "Scientific evidence doesn't support the existence of a creator God, therefore such a God probably doesn't exist." If we are being truly scientific, we are open to the possibility that our understanding may change if new information becomes available.




However, I can't understate the importance of the notion that spiritual inquiry is fundamentally different from scientific inquiry. The scientific endeavor is primarily concerned with exteriors and surfaces, while the spiritual endeavor is concerned mostly with interiors and depth.


To be a little more clear, imagine a person whose brain activity is being monitored. We can see that certain neurotransmitters are active. We can see where the electrical activity is happening, for example, in the speech center or the fear center. These are all exterior realities, which we can map out.


But the map doesn't and can't reveal the person's interior depth. To know what thoughts are happening along with the fear response or the empathy response, you must talk to that person. In other words, they must disclose their interiors to you. And you will have an accurate picture of that person's interior as long as they are interpreting their depths accurately, and you are understanding them properly.




It's similar to the difference between studying society and studying culture. A social researcher (in the sense that I'm using 'social' - in contrast with 'cultural') would be concerned with the exterior structures, like how a tribal rain dance affects the observable, map-able behavior of the people. But a cultural researcher would be more concerned with what the rain dance means to the people; how they feel about it, how they understand it.


Both the interior and exterior components of the rain dance are related, but irreducible to each other. It's the same with a person's inner experience and their outer physiochemical behavior.


So, and this is my point, were we to try to use data about neurotransmitter and electrical activity in the brain to prove the specific details of a person's inner thought-stream, we'd be making a methodological error. Interior spaces simply don't disclose themselves to exterior methods of inquiry.

Tek

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Yea faith in past trials of that idea that you wont float the next time you jump
If by 'faith' you mean 'confidence' then I agree. You would be confident in the results of previous experiments, and you'd expect this one to be the same.

But we've been using the term differently. Belief without evidence is different than confidence in experimental data. But, I suppose it could be considered an act of faith to think that the current experiment will be the same as the previous ones, because there's no evidence until after the experiment is performed and analyzed.


Heh, of course, you've gotta have faith that you're awake and not dreaming. There's been almost a dozen times this year that I've joked that I was dreaming, wondered if I was dreaming, or was sure that I was not dreaming... only to wake up. And sometimes wake up again afterwards.

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Uh no? Depending on your upbringing you might be instilled with various moral values connected heavily to whatever religion your family was brought up on, but as you grow up and create a view of the world, its up to you as a person to decide what and if you believe in something. There is nothing naturally predominant in the human subconcious that needs a higher being, except perhaps if they cannot logically come up with an answer for life that fufills them, and thus the need for said higher power is created.

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If by 'faith' you mean 'confidence' then I agree. You would be confident in the results of previous experiments, and you'd expect this one to be the same.

But we've been using the term differently. Belief without evidence is different than confidence in experimental data. But, I suppose it could be considered an act of faith to think that the current experiment will be the same as the previous ones, because there's no evidence until after the experiment is performed and analyzed.


Heh, of course, you've gotta have faith that you're awake and not dreaming. There's been almost a dozen times this year that I've joked that I was dreaming, wondered if I was dreaming, or was sure that I was not dreaming... only to wake up. And sometimes wake up again afterwards.
Well that is exactly what mean n.n because when we are using the term faith like a person of the christian religion uses it we are talking about them having confidence in there life experiment that this will happen so on and so forth

And yea the whole dreaming not dreaming thing is confusing even more now with computers now but i just leave at if I am sleeping I wonder where my last save point was :)

and as for installation mmm I look at it like just cause someones trying to program you doesn't mean you can hit cancel or abort once you realize it

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It can go either way, I suppose. If you are brought up Catholic, then most of the time, you'd stay a Catholic, because it's all you've ever known and you were taught to believe it and only it.

Then there are others who decide when they are older, and able to make those sorts of choices by themselves, that they do not agree with what they were raised with, and convert to a religion (or lack thereof) that they agree with.

For instance, my sister was raised Baptist, and is still a Baptist. I was also raised Baptist, however decided I would be an atheist, because I did not agree with any religion.
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There is nothing naturally predominant in the human subconcious that needs a higher being, except perhaps if they cannot logically come up with an answer for life that fufills them, and thus the need for said higher power is created.
I wonder why you think this. I respect your view, and I ask because your view is a perfect foil to my own.

As long as people have been around, we have wondered about 'something more', something Beyond. Why do you believe that a perception of some kind of 'higher power' can only come from lack of knowledge, lack of understanding?

It's common to say that spiritual thoughts are simply the things we can't explain rationally, but what about Schroedinger, Planck, and Einstein? All of them found a post-rational, mystical, Transcendent reality through a deep understanding of physics.

And what of methods of introspection, such as the various forms of meditation? Meditation is essentially a repeatable experiment dealing with one's inner space. When people sit and allow bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions to simply arise, without description or judgement, people consistently feel an expanded sense of self that goes beyond the body-mind or individual organism and reaches to infinity.

Longtime meditators consistently report that there is something Infinite and Wondrous, and that it is part of them, and they are part of it. Is it really accurate to dismiss thousands of years of testimony as wishful thinking?

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I say that because even if the modern day scientists do believe in something else, or even are open to the possiblity of it, you have to look at religions roots in our history, or at least religions roots in the parts of history that also explored Science, and see what the need for religion was. For example, philosophy is a direct result of the Ancient Greeks pondering about the world we live in. That in itself led to the creation of the Greek Pantheon, ie religion. They needed answers, could not come up with said answers through any logical chain of thought due to the lack of knowledge and technology, and thus came to the belief of a higher being. Of course that has no bearing on how we percieve reilgion through Judaism/Buddhism/Christianity/Islam so on so forth, but each of these religions all began with the reasoning that everything happens because of some plan or what not. Now with a lot of things understood, I just feel that religions use and function in society to be very diminished, to the point of being uneeded. I can fully understand if certain Religions reassessed their purposes and perhaps offered a more philosophical mantra, but even then I feel that we as a species have come along far enough to be able to think on an individual basis and not as a herd.

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I wonder why you think this. I respect your view, and I ask because your view is a perfect foil to my own.

As long as people have been around, we have wondered about 'something more', something Beyond. Why do you believe that a perception of some kind of 'higher power' can only come from lack of knowledge, lack of understanding?

It's common to say that spiritual thoughts are simply the things we can't explain rationally, but what about Schroedinger, Planck, and Einstein? All of them found a post-rational, mystical, Transcendent reality through a deep understanding of physics.

And what of methods of introspection, such as the various forms of meditation? Meditation is essentially a repeatable experiment dealing with one's inner space. When people sit and allow bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions to simply arise, without description or judgement, people consistently feel an expanded sense of self that goes beyond the body-mind or individual organism and reaches to infinity.

Longtime meditators consistently report that there is something Infinite and Wondrous, and that it is part of them, and they are part of it. Is it really accurate to dismiss thousands of years of testimony as wishful thinking?
If you trip on acid/shrooms/DMT/other psychedelics, you get the same exact feeling you described about meditation. People report taking high doses and experiencing true death of the ego, and often report that they feel they were connected with the universe and sometimes saw other beings or gods. I can personally attest to that - that really does happen. This exact feeling can also be observed in various abnormal mental states, such as during seizures. I also meditate, and the feeling of ego loss as you described feels remarkably similar to tripping in some respects. However, I think it is a bit much to ascribe profundity to the experience of ego loss - that would be like validating the feelings of someone who is tripping as something more than just a drug induced state of mind, a trick of the brain if you will. Taking these experiences at face value, just because we are all connected to the universe doesn't inherently mean there's a god out there. It just removes the illusion that we are not all connected at the macro level in one giant organism - the universe. Just as your body is made up of millions of tiny, sometimes independently living parts contained within, so too is true of the universe imo. Of course, given that we only perceive with five basic, narrow senses, who knows what's out there that may even be right in front of us?
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I have absolutely no idea what most of the people above me are talking about. Either most of you have started rambling, or I'm just stupid. Take your pick.

Anyways, back on what I think was the original topic. Of course everyone has a belief. Unless you're brain dead and literally incapable of having one, you have a belief. If you're Christian, you believe in God. If you're some other religion, it might be some alligator pelican thing that eats the sun every night and gives birth to the moon and then in the morning eats the moon in order to give life to the sun or whatever (I'm nowhere near an expert in other religions.) Atheists believe it was sheer chance. Agnostics are rarely actually agnostics. They usually lean heavily on one side and are just checking to see if there's something better before they go full force into their current belief.

Religion is one topic I've never truly been unbiased about, so I can't know for sure, but people who claim to have no beliefs have always been lying (sometimes unknowingly) in my experience.