Great religious falsehoods

It isn't a dodge since science cannot answer all questions. Science is not equipped to answer philosophical questions. It thusly cannot answer metaphysical questions either. I think Dawkins has learned over the years that his trademarked hardcore approach was alienating people, even among those in agreement with him. There have been a lot of polite debates. D'Souza/Hitchens, Lewis/Russell, Chesterton/Freud, Craig/Sinot-Armstrong, etc. Maybe you were just unaware of such debates, but they seemed generally respectful. How much more assertive do you want it? There already are anti-apologetic advocates aggressively trying to dissuade people. They have saturated the internet, have best-selling books, have almost entirely taken command of the scientific community, etc. What more do you want to see? You want to force people to sit there and listen to scientific sermons? That sounds a little fascist, don't you think?

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“I know where I am and who I am. I'm on the brink of disillusionment, on the eve of bitter sweet. I'm perpetually one step away from either collapse or rebirth. I am exactly where I need to be. Either way I go towards rebirth, for a total collapse often brings a rebirth." -Andrew Jaramillo

There's no such thing as an omnipotent being.It just isn;t logically possible.The old example of 'can God create a stone that is so heavy that God cannot lift it' proves there cannot be any omnipotent entity.

How does faith answer questions? Don't just make the claim, describe the process.

I don’t understand what you are saying with the statement about being that way intentionally. Are you saying that god made it that way intentionally? I did not intend to say that the lack of proof is evidence that he does not exist. I did mean to say that supporters do not have any evidence. So why believe? It is up to the believers to offer the evidence.If you still perceive that false dichotomy, how would you reword my statement?

Do you have any empirical way of knowing whether or not your wife loves you?Can science define love, let alone uncover it? No, at most somebody can look at the brain light up in specific areas while under an MRI, or note that endorphins are released in to the bloodstream. But is that what love is? Or is that the physiological response as a result of love?I think we tend to confuse faith with blind faith. Blind faith is naively following something without reason. I think that is vastly different from an informed faith that grows after serious introspection and reflection.This is not a put down on science, by any means. I'm just simply saying that many, many people have deified science as if it were the Holy Grail. Science has its function -- an immeasurably important one. But it does not have all of the answers.Indeed, science can't even tell you why science is "good" in the first place.

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“I know where I am and who I am. I'm on the brink of disillusionment, on the eve of bitter sweet. I'm perpetually one step away from either collapse or rebirth. I am exactly where I need to be. Either way I go towards rebirth, for a total collapse often brings a rebirth." -Andrew Jaramillo

I said that perhaps it is intentional. The most profound things in life tend to be paradoxes, as they superficially appear to contradict, or seem beyond our full comprehension. Believers aren't required to give you evidence, and even if they were, they can't give you any proof. God is an unprovable concept, either in favor or against.You ask, why believe? That's a perfectly valid question, and the only answer that I can give you is that some people have allegedly experienced God in an unprovable way. It is a personal matter between them and God, and they can't prove it. You in turn have the option not to believe them or assume they are delusional. I would say that theists are incapable of proving God, and atheists are incapable of disproving God.

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“I know where I am and who I am. I'm on the brink of disillusionment, on the eve of bitter sweet. I'm perpetually one step away from either collapse or rebirth. I am exactly where I need to be. Either way I go towards rebirth, for a total collapse often brings a rebirth." -Andrew Jaramillo

Yes it is indeed. The fact that science cannot answer all questions is a red herring. It does not matter one iota that science cannot answer all questions. Just because we may not know the right question, or how to phrase it, does not protect it from science.Imagine someone that does not know anything about electronics, computers or any of our modern gadgets. They would have an extremely difficult time posing valid questions about how computers work. That would not mean that computers are not subject to scientific questions. Just that the questioner does not have the knowledge to ask the proper question. (Please don’t quibble over the exact analogy. Stay with the concept.) For example, [and this is just an example, lets not key off on this in this thread] I want to find a way to express our arguments such that the religious sections in congress and state legislatures cannot weasel around the words and pass laws restricting abortion on the concept human life is sacred and a just conceived zygote is a human life. [There are many variations but they boil down to the same results.] The objections to abortion in the early stages of pregnancy [no debates on how early, just some point] are religious in nature. Many deny that is the case, but I believe the denials are outright false. Keep asking “Why?” until you find the core belief. That is easy, I want to see religion taken out of our laws as specified in the constitution. Fascist is not the correct word here. Totalitarian government is. And what is religion if not totalitarian? Christianity has a LONG and SORDID history of torturing and murdering people in the name of their god. When religious people want to create laws to make me live by their beliefs, your damned right I do! And not only do I believe that is justified, I believe that is morally and ethically right. The question is not where do I get the right, the question is where do they get the right to make the law. I don’t want to forcibly intrude on theirs live, they want to intrude on mine. And I want to protect my rights. Lets keep the sides straight.Before posting a rant, note that I have said (or implied) earlier that I recognize that we just cannot rant and rave and get things to change. My brashness just does not work. I recognize that. But that doesn’t mean roll over and accept what they cram down our throats. So what can we find that will work?And there I go violating my own desire to keep posts simple. I'll try to do better next time.

To some degree we can indeed disprove it. What are the characteristics of god?He loves us.[Lets not quibble about love, we know what it means. In particular, we know what it means when we tell young children that god and jesus love you. That is not a point of debate for this thread.]Question: What is your evidence of his love? He created us in a world with far more pain that joy. We murder each other in his name. He does absolutely nothing to stop that behavior. Passages in the bible are downright nasty encouraging armies to kill every living thing including women, children, pigs, goats, etc. Another point, Why did he make this world such that all animals must kill other living things to live? (Plants do want to live.) Given the claimed attributes of god, it is inescapable that this was his desire.So where is the love? This is a characteristic that is claimed and in the sense that we understand love, is provably false.

Again, how does faith answer questions? Don't just make the claim, describe the process.(Pointing out that science or casual observation or human instinct or anything else doesn't answer all questions doesn't answer my question). Yes. Loads of empirical evidence. Nem, don't tell me that you believe your wife loves you because of your religious faith.Hasn't she ever shown affection for you?The O.P. is about religious faith, Nemesis. How does having faith that the Koran is the word of God tell anyone anything?

Well you're getting ahead of yourself now by wanting evidence.We have the claim "An omnipotent being exists" (called God for purposes of discussion).Before we go off trying to test this claim (thus gathering evidence), we need to look at the claim and see if it is testable. It isn't. That's testing prayer though, not the existence of God. Prayer is indeed testable (or at least the claim that prayer can bring about results in the physical world). On paper, anyway. The problem is that you're dealing with an abstract concept - maybe God has His reasons for not answering prayers. Maybe He only doesn't answer them when under examination, because He doesn't want to be so obvious, preserving free will. You can always wiggle out of it because you have something that by definition can do anything.It's sort of like the pretend fights you had as a kid."I shot you!"
"Nuh uh, I dodged it!"
"Yeah well I have heat seeking bullets you can't dodge them!!!"
"Yeah well I have diamond armour!"
"Yeah I have diamond bullets!!!!"Your shot will never get through, sorry So the concept of omnipotence and God are unscientific (hence why I don't believe in them) - they lie outside of the realm of science.

See, now that you're dealing with abstract concepts with love, you can't really say that you're doing science anymore. Love isn't something that we could reasonably come up with an objective workable definition with.You can still use logic and reasoning, but now you're doing philosophy and not science.

How is that a red herring, especially when your own questions defers with reductio ad absurdum? It would matter if science cannot answer all the questions if you are demanding that God be explained by science alone.1. Scientifically, what were the affects of the Industrial Revolution?2. Scientifically, what is the square root of 49?3. Scientifically, what are the social consequences of boxing on a society?4. Scientifically, what is truth?5. Scientifically, how much does your mother love you?You are setting up a false dichotomy by demanding that God be explained by science, without ever thinking that perhaps God, not being material, could have been answered by it in the first place. "Religion" or the "religious" are not the only people who ask moral questions, also something that can't be answered by science.But I'm understanding what you want. You want total dominion over the earth and its residents. Can't we just then assume that you desire to be the tyrant god that you despise? Since the foundation of both religion and law are morals, I don't see how that would be entirely possible. To me, that's like saying, Can't we just have matter without atoms? Sheesh!I think part of the problem is that many scientists make the mistake of viewing science without the philosophy of science to give it substance. This, in my estimation, is critical."So many people today -- and even professional scientists -- seem to me like someone who has seen a thousand trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is, in my opinion, the mark of distinction between the mere artesian or specialist and a real seeker after truth." - Albert Einstein Are you suggesting that, one, all of Christendom has a sordid history, and two, that all religions have long and sordid histories of torturing and murdering people in the name of their god? Because I think Quakers, Buddhists and Shintoists might object to that gross exaggeration.Should I in turn suggest that because of Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung, that all atheists with vested interests in science are also advocates of torture and murder? Where do you? By what grand arbiter should we allow you to become god in God's absence? The Greeks had a word for this: Hypocrisy Dialogue? Discussion? Compromise? I think its a good place to start. Well, don't be hard on yourself. This isn't exactly a topic that can be glossed over in a couple of paragraphs. There are some complex issues to be worked out, which people have gone over, rehashed, rehashed some more, and rehashed some more, without ever coming to a consensus.

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“I know where I am and who I am. I'm on the brink of disillusionment, on the eve of bitter sweet. I'm perpetually one step away from either collapse or rebirth. I am exactly where I need to be. Either way I go towards rebirth, for a total collapse often brings a rebirth." -Andrew Jaramillo

I don't think I have taken that attitude at all. My position is that the religious zealots have no right to force me to live under religious laws that they create. I want to stop them from doing that. I want to stop them from controlling me. I have said nothing about forcing them to live acording to my beliefs. Just stop forcing me to live by theirs. I think there is a huge difference here. Please reconsider. Do you think I am being dishonest with myself on this point?

Since everyone employs faith, even scientists utilizing hypotheses, it answers questions in the exact same way as any inductive reasoning process. Again, I distinguish between blind faith and informed faith.

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Do you have any empirical way of knowing whether or not your wife loves you?

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Okay, then tell me a few. A religious faith would have little to do with that. The problem, as I see it, is that most people equate faith with religion. That's isn't the case at all. Sure, but that doesn't mean that she loves me. A woman was just arrested after her fifth husband kicked the bucket. Suspicion arose which led police to a grisly discovery. She had killed all five. I'm pretty sure her affection, however genuine she portrayed it, was not the truth.In the final analysis, it requires faith to believe another persons sincerity. It tells you about their thought process. I mean, what does your reading of Sarte tell me? It tells me that you read Sarte. What you gleaned from it or discarded is another story.

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“I know where I am and who I am. I'm on the brink of disillusionment, on the eve of bitter sweet. I'm perpetually one step away from either collapse or rebirth. I am exactly where I need to be. Either way I go towards rebirth, for a total collapse often brings a rebirth." -Andrew Jaramillo

I guess I have to ask what laws you are referring to. Actually you did. You may have misspoke, but you did say so.I asked,

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You want to force people to sit there and listen to scientific sermons?

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You responded, No, I just don't want you to get so flustered with people that they turn in to enemies for you. I think that should be avoided if at all possible, if for only your own mind's sake.Everyone is annoyed by fundies. Even moderate Christians are annoyed (and embarrassed too!) by zealots. However, not all opponents of, say, abortion, are inherently religious. I know a few atheists that simply don't agree with it.As well, zealots come in all forms, religious or irreligious.

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“I know where I am and who I am. I'm on the brink of disillusionment, on the eve of bitter sweet. I'm perpetually one step away from either collapse or rebirth. I am exactly where I need to be. Either way I go towards rebirth, for a total collapse often brings a rebirth." -Andrew Jaramillo