What are atheists?

[5VP]

Definitely agree...

The Crusades, the Spanish inquisition, extermination of Jews etc. were all either supported, sanctioned, funded or otherwise given a nod and a wink by the Catholic Empire but...

Atheists can thank the Roman Empire, Joseph Stalin, Islam etc. for killing off millions of jews and christians and followers of other faiths.

I've found that it's much easier to find relevance and peace of mind and I'm much happier by reading the bible and other ancient texts of the world, and then applying the lessons to my personal life, and how I relate to others, rather than being indoctrinated by some strict religious or areligious interpretations of events that occured thousands of years ago...

Once I was able to separate out the religiosity and just let imagination soar, it became a wonderful thing ...

[rekabis]

...the actual action of experimentation itself...

don't be afraid

What are you blathering about? This has nothing to do with being afraid, it has everything to do with having a point in the first place. Which it has none, to begin with.

The entire problem with that video is that it tried to espouse “making a difference” in your life using prayer. However, there is one really big elephant in the corner which it absolutely refuses to address:

By What Benchmark??

The problem with this issue is that any claim to an item’s effectiveness must rely on reproducible, verifiable and independent results. Otherwise, it’s entirely an OPINION, and therefore worthless as a claim, Scientific or otherwise.

Without a consistent benchmark that is entirely independent of the person who is affected by the claim, there is no way of properly (and logically) gauging the claim’s effectiveness. Flim-flam artists and snake-oil peddlers have always known this, and have leveraged this to the hilt. Is there any wonder why people believe in things like the occult, crystal therapy, homeopathy and any number of different “claims”? It’s because these claims rely on a wide variety of well-established logical fallacies, including such doozies as Appeals to Authority and Appeals to Emotion.

Real claims that purport to improve your life will include concrete, external (observer-independent) benchmarks by which anyone (skeptic or believer) can measure their progress.

An internal change in “feeling” will NEVER be an appropriate benchmark for anyone looking for concrete changes in their life, simply because it cannot be properly measured to an external benchmark. And therefore it is useless as a benchmark, utterly invalidating the video that was referenced.

Besides, nothing fails quite as effectively as prayer. Corollary: Noting deceives more effectively than prayer.

Q.E.D.

[5VP]

Speaking of benchmarks. Here's one from a legal perspective.

http://www.leestrobel.com/channels/CFChrist.php

[rekabis]

Could you atheists tell Christians what kind of world you will implement went you take power? New Age, Communist, Socialist?
What are you going to do when your Messiah arrives on the day of declaration? Just like to know what to expect in the future after the fall of Western Christian Civilization?

My world would be a fully Democratic and properly Capitalistic Minarchist Meritocracy. Basically, anything a right wing(nut) conservative, cronyism-loving 1%-er would drop a steaming load in their pants over. Especially so since true Democracy would destroy the lobby industry (paid-for votes) and true capitalism considers patents and copyrights to be virulently anti-capitalistic and inherently anathema. Yes, if you must ask, I am a Libertarian.

As for the Messiah? I would give him one hearty smack upside the head. Religion was useful 500+ years ago for providing the social “glue” to allow civilizations to take root, but it has no real purpose in today’s world except between the ears of those who have trouble grasping the true nature of reality (in other words, as a mental set of crutches for when there isn’t enough intelligence to bridge the gap). For these kinds of people, I have absolutely no problem with them keeping their own personal demons to torture themselves with, but I heartily object to any forced dissemination; especially to those too young to make up their minds yet (children, etc.).

As it is, for the last several hundred years Religion has become a decidedly negative-sum game: it produces far more pain and suffering than it professes to relieve. Unless you count religiously-inspired exterminations and mass killings; a quick end at the hands of religious fanatics certainly be in line with relieving suffering.

And before someone invokes Godwin’s Law, I should point out that in the last century, the Holocaust, the Gulag and the Killing Fields were ideologically- and politically-based. Religion (or lack of it) did NOT enter into the picture except as a method by which to more easily identify the “scapegoats”. Even Scientists and Atheists were indiscriminately targeted - and in the case of the Khumer Rouge, purposely so (since they were considered to be “intellectuals”, and a threat to the new system).

[rekabis]

Speaking of benchmarks. Here's one from a legal perspective.

http://www.leestrobel.com/channels/CFChrist.php

Wow. Logical fallacies large enough to drive a Mac truck through. And virtually ZERO scientifically-verifiable evidence outside of the Good Book. Nice.

In other words, USELESS outside the realm of fairy-tale fantasy.

[fluffy]

Real claims that purport to improve your life will include concrete, external (observer-independent) benchmarks by which anyone (skeptic or believer) can measure their progress.

Such as financial success?

[rekabis]

Real claims that purport to improve your life will include concrete, external (observer-independent) benchmarks by which anyone (skeptic or believer) can measure their progress.

Such as financial success?

Correlation & causation. There isn’t one where feelings vs financial success are concerned.

Besides, I’d love to see the machine that is able to measure “happiness” in a thoroughly scientific and human-independent manner, in order to provide the benchmark needed to correlate the two. How do you measure “minimum happiness” (or maximum unhappiness)? How do you measure “maximum happiness”? How sure can you be that one person’s “maximum happiness” represents the true maximum of happiness that a person can feel? How can you be sure that different people are feeling the same kind of happiness, so that they can be compared against each other? All these questions are about as useless as trying to scientifically determine how many angels can fit on a head of a pin.

Besides, I have come across many filthy rich people (including some 1%-ers) that are absolutely miserable in their lives. I also know some dirt-poor people (personally) who are some of the happiest people I have ever seen. In that regard, how does financial success correlate with happiness? Do we get happier simply because we are richer? Do the dirt-poor exist as miserable wretches on this earth, doomed to curse their very existence? What is the correlation?

[5VP]

Speaking of benchmarks. Here's one from a legal perspective.

http://www.leestrobel.com/channels/CFChrist.php

Wow. Logical fallacies large enough to drive a Mac truck through. And virtually ZERO scientifically-verifiable evidence outside of the Good Book. Nice.

In other words, USELESS outside the realm of fairy-tale fantasy.

A Mack truck you say??

Gotta see that.



My non Jewish grandfather died as a political prisoner at Theriesenstadt prison but to claim that the "Holocaust" was not in any way religiously motivated? Roman Catholic representatives were fully aware of the extermination. Jehovah's Witnesses were also targeted.

C'mon Rekabis. Revisionist bafflegab??

Seriously??

[rekabis]

Speaking of benchmarks. Here's one from a legal perspective.

http://www.leestrobel.com/channels/CFChrist.php

Wow. Logical fallacies large enough to drive a Mac truck through. And virtually ZERO scientifically-verifiable evidence outside of the Good Book. Nice.

In other words, USELESS outside the realm of fairy-tale fantasy.

A Mack truck you say??

Gotta see that...

Define: Metaphor. See also: Euphamism. Google is your friend.

[rekabis]

My non Jewish grandfather died as a political prisoner at Theriesenstadt prison but to claim that the "Holocaust" was not in any way religiously motivated? Roman Catholic representatives were fully aware of the extermination. Jehovah's Witnesses were also targeted.

C'mon Rekabis. Revisionist bafflegab??

Hardly. Only about half of all the people who died in the Holocaust were Jews. They were only the scapegoats. Even Hitler admitted as much, when asked, as he hated their control over finance and economics, not their religion. The rest were political prisoners, homosexuals and other “undesirables” - including Atheists.

Remember, the Holocaust was all about ideology and politics - in any systematic destruction of a religion (religious persecution), people are able to escape persecution by converting to another religion. In Nazi Europe this was not an option -- Jews were killed whether or not they converted to Christianity, which took Religion itself out of the equation: it was a pogrom against a specific group of people, not their religion, that made them a target.

Had it been the Jewish religion that was specifically targeted, people could have simply converted to other religions to escape the persecution. However, even those who were clearly Christian and had been so from birth, but who had Jewish ancestors, were targeted for death. You don’t get that with religious pogroms, only ideological ones..

[averagejoe]

Speaking of benchmarks. Here's one from a legal perspective.

http://www.leestrobel.com/channels/CFChrist.php

Wow. Logical fallacies large enough to drive a Mac truck through. And virtually ZERO scientifically-verifiable evidence outside of the Good Book. Nice.

In other words, USELESS outside the realm of fairy-tale fantasy.

So are saying that the whole Bible is a fairy-tail? Are you saying that Moses and the Israelite's didn't exodus from Egyptian persecution?

[5VP]

Remember, the Holocaust was all about ideology and politics - in any systematic destruction of a religion (religious persecution), people are able to escape persecution by converting to another religion. In Nazi Europe this was not an option -- Jews were killed whether or not they converted to Christianity, which took Religion itself out of the equation: it was a pogrom against a specific group of people, not their religion, that made them a target.

Had it been the Jewish religion that was specifically targeted, people could have simply converted to other religions to escape the persecution. However, even those who were clearly Christian and had been so from birth, but who had Jewish ancestors, were targeted for death. You don’t get that with religious pogroms, only ideological ones..

So the Jews, being distinct as both a race and religion and biblically declared as God's chosen people, were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time??

GOTT MIT UNS!!!

Do you not recall this slogan on the belt buckles, daggers and other Nazi regalia and accoutrements??

You might want to check the brakes on the ol' Big MACK and give the driver a sobriety test before the concrete wall of reality jumps out in front of it...

[fluffy]

I'm not sure where you're heading here rek, you say that without a benchmark to measure something by then scientific verification is impossible, then you follow that with reasons why it is also impossible to place a benchmark on human happiness. So what are you saying, that it is impossible to verify the existence of happiness?

[rekabis]

Speaking of benchmarks. Here's one from a legal perspective.

http://www.leestrobel.com/channels/CFChrist.php

Wow. Logical fallacies large enough to drive a Mac truck through. And virtually ZERO scientifically-verifiable evidence outside of the Good Book. Nice.

In other words, USELESS outside the realm of fairy-tale fantasy.

So are saying that the whole Bible is a fairy-tail? Are you saying that Moses and the Israelites didn't exodus from Egyptian persecution?

There are some gems of truth in the Bible: the walls of Jericho, in fact, did indeed fall. But not from a trumpet, but by earthquakes on multiple occasions. From what I recall, one occasion was even around the middle bronze age, when the wall was a rather tall and steep plastered escarpment. When it was destroyed, Jericho remained largely unoccupied until the Iron age.

Even the story of Moses and the Israelites has only a small kernel of truth. Did they live in Egypt, building the Egyptian monuments? Probably not, as recent discoveries have shown that all major monuments were built by Egyptian labour in the form of “giving taxes”. The Israelite people had no part as a labour force within Egypt, nor is there any mention of Israelites in Egypt in any great number at that time (from Egyptian writings of the time), much less as slaves. However, the fable of Moses does probably arise from memories of Egyptian domination of the Israel area and a slow and gradual process of migration and conquest from Egyptian occupation over a series of generations during the bronze age.

So are there actual, verifiable events recorded in the Bible? Yes; but only very, very few. They are vastly outnumbered by events that cannot be confirmed in any way whatsoever without referring to the Bible itself (the self-referential fallacy -- a red flag for anyone looking for actual evidence) or by events that have been shown to have never occurred, or were patently plagiarized from earlier religions (Noah’s Flood).

[rekabis]

I'm not sure where you're heading here rek, you say that without a benchmark to measure something by then scientific verification is impossible, then you follow that with reasons why it is also impossible to place a benchmark on human happiness. So what are you saying, that it is impossible to verify the existence of happiness?

You are precise, but not accurate.

What I am trying to say is that it is impossible to define happiness, and therefore it is impossible to measure it. Ergo, you cannot use happiness as a benchmark, as it is a psychological state. Its interpretation depends entirely on the person experiencing it, which is exactly what Science isn’t.

That is not to say that happiness doesn’t exist. We can determine even if Bees are happy or depressed, since their resulting behaviour mimics ours in terms of certain broadly measurable indicators. As such, Happiness exists, however it is not measurable.

To put it another way, a person deeply into S&M may gain great happiness in being whipped to an inch of their life. To them, having physical pain inflicted upon them makes them very happy. Does that mean the same thing will work for you? Or me? Not really. So how would we measure happiness? By how much pain it will take for us to make us happy? For someone with CIPA — a rare genetic disorder that makes them unable to feel physical pain, how would our measurements take that into effect? These are the kinds of things that need to be addressed before any sort of measurement of happiness can conform to the Scientific Method.