[Xujhan]

Originally Posted by dr2005

The comparison was one I introduced, mainly because they are the primary causes of all human division and conflict. My question was why religion should be held as being particularly worse than these others as a source of hatred and division. I would also dispute quite strongly that human nature or geography inevitably lead to such hatred and division, or that society naturally begets politics. That seems more a convenient fiction. In any event, such harms can just as easily be addressed as those caused by religion if one is willing to address them, and with all four areas I fear that is the real problem.

There are two good reasons to not attempt to get rid of severely harmful things: either we are powerless to do so, or their existence is necessary for a greater benefit. Geography and human nature fall into the former category, and politics into the latter. I suppose you could argue that anarchy wouldn't devolve into chaos, but that would need a whole other thread. Religion doesn't seem to fall into either of these categories.

Originally Posted by dr2005

In the spirit of the above, consider these very, very abridged responses:

- This presupposes that the sole purpose of religion is providing comfort, for which you have no evidence at all.
- Secular ideologies have by and large originated in countries in which religion and society have been intertwined (for good or ill) for thousands of years. One has quite clearly influenced the development of the other. To claim therefore that the same ideas would originate without religion is an argument with, again, no evidence for its support - and if you consider how pre-Christian Celtic and Roman societies conducted themselves, perhaps evidence against it if anything.
- This is not disputed, but anything in extremes is damaging. Extreme political views, extreme sports, extreme speculation in investments - I could even throw in extreme dieting. Judging anything by reference to its extremes is not particularly rational to my mind.
- Highly debatable: would you make the same claim about moderate politics?
- Again highly debatable: I for one must have missed that particular Sunday school class.
- The same could be said of any charitable organisation, or any kind of state-administered welfare system (or indeed the state itself), so that isn't the strongest argument.

If you'd like to go into this in more detail feel free to PM me.

If I ever do find the time and inclination, it won't be in a PM. You will be the first to hear though, if you like. I will comment on one of your replies though: "This presupposes that the sole purpose of religion is providing comfort, for which you have no evidence at all." Inferring things I haven't said is bad form. Why does a claim that religion gives no significant comfort necessarily imply a claim that religion could not provide any other benefit?

Originally Posted by dr2005

Slightly left-field question: do you accept the elements of quantum theory concerning the Higgs boson? That after all has no evidence for its existence (and if you take the argument of one of my friends who studied physics at Oxford and visited CERN, it can't because the maths is flawed), yet it is currently accepted as the best explanation for problem areas in the theory. I acknowledge that doesn't address your objection, onto which I will now move, but I am interested in your response nonetheless.

I don't think one way or the other. I find it the height of arrogance to pretend to have a meaningful opinion on something about which I am almost completely ignorant. In general though, a new idea which happens to fit the facts is exactly that; it seems silly to think strongly one way or the other until either evidence turns up or sufficient testing fails to turn up the expected evidence.

Originally Posted by dr2005

Anyway, whether or not it relies upon "acceptance of something without evidence" depends entirely upon how you treat the writings which underpin various religions. If, as seems to be your want, you dismiss them entirely out of hand simply because they make reference to a deity that you cannot imagine existing, then there is obviously going to be an evidential problem which cannot be overcome. It would be like trying to argue that murder is unlawful while discounting all case law and statute on the subject. If on the other hand you approach them from a neutral perspective, neither accepting unequivocably nor dismissing unequivocably, then you may well find evidence which supports the hypothesis. It will however depend entirely on what weight and interpretation you give the evidence, and I feel you are depicting this as a purely objective enterprise when quite frankly it is anything but. The fact that the debate over whether God exists or not remains a topic at all should suggest it is anything but a done deal and that some evidence has at the very least been adduced, or else why bother expending time and energy on the question?

The last part is unconvincing; there's still a debate over evolution in the US and that's absolutely a done deal. Also, whether or not god exists and whether or not Christianity is true are hugely different questions. Otherwise, the way you word this objection seems dishonest; there are many more good reasons than a simple lack of imagination to dismiss the bible as reliable evidence. I'm hardly a scholar on the subject, but there's plenty of literature about it. Everything I have ever read about the origins of Christianity and the bible lead me to believe that it is no different than any other religion; the attempts of young civilizations to explain that which was beyond their grasp.

Originally Posted by dr2005

You will note that I acknowlegded that very point regarding it not supporting the existence of God in my last sentence. My attack was more directed at the format of your analogy as a comparison. On a different note, evidence against Yahweh is not impossible - it is merely beyond our current capabilities. The two are not one and the same and it is presumptuous indeed to argue that the Universe can only function according to our criteria. Were one able to move outside the Universe, evidence for or against his existence would become apparent quite quickly.

Why so? It is always possible to simply say "He exists; he only exists outside of our reach." It's been done for millenia, after all. God used to be beyond the sky; when finally we ourselves reached beyond the sky we found no god. In any event, "we could find evidence if only we were able to look outside the universe" is no better in terms of falsifiability than Descartes' demons. Outside the universe isn't just beyond our abilities; it's so far beyond them as to be laughable as defense of an argument. It is essentially saying "It's possible to find evidence if it's possible to find evidence." Sure, technically true, but hardly useful.

Originally Posted by dr2005

Character is again not an observable or testable characteristic, so that is not a particularly strong ground for discounting God's existence. The Flood is a more credible one and I will grant you that, but your vague "few thousand years ago" is perhaps not the most advisable. As this Wikipedia article points out, there are events in history which could explain accounts of a "flood which covered the land". You could also point to the fact that such "flood myths" have appeared in a diverse range of cultures over a range of tens of thousands of miles, which at the very least requires some explanation as to how cultures with little-to-no contact settled upon the same metaphor despite differences in thought process, language and imagery. That is perhaps a matter for another time, however.

Descriptions of character aren't testable, but a god that seems so human in mannerisms - like most other gods - seems that much more likely to have come from human imagination. That was my point. Those speculated origins for the flood myth are just that; origins for a myth. These are things that we would expect of writings from early tribes; a local flood described as "the entire world drowned". These things all make sense of the bible as a record of myths, not as a record of the divine.

Another example, perhaps much more convincing: the entire story of Exodus seems to be almost completely false.

Originally Posted by dr2005

I can't help but notice you've gone back to Jesus rather than God, despite my recollection that in another thread you accepted the historical existence of Jesus even if you disputed in no uncertain terms claims of his divinity.

Jesus is the defining figure of Christianity; it would have made no sense to say "Zeus, Thor, and God".

Originally Posted by dr2005

Again, I would question how you can say with any certainty that charitable obligation would still exist in a world where religion had not. A quick glance at the history of charitable obligation would show that Christianity has played quite a fundamental role in this (to take but two examples, Barnardo's childrens charity in the UK and the abolition of the slave trade were both spearheaded by Christians), and it continues to do so to this day even if society has become more secular. The only reference point we have to go by is how society was pre-Christianity, and that does not give much support to your argument. I use Christianity as an example but others could easily fit the mould.

Is there any reason to think that these things would not remain? Pointing to the role of Christianity in our society in the past is as senseless as pointing to the dominance of men in science in the past; of course they were dominant, there were simply no other options. Once upon a time religion was the driving force behind education as well, but this has since ceased to be true. We do know however that being religious doesn't particularly alter people's character; people who are inclined to be charitable will be charitable whether they're religious or not.

Originally Posted by dr2005

Science, government and politics are all tools like any other - it is how one uses them that provides benefit or detriment. To take a scientific example, one could either view the splitting of the atom as providing a positive contribution to energy generation or the cause of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Japan. You could also point to science underpinning the development of chemical weapons, napalm and cluster bombs, or you could point to it developing vaccines and other medical advances. At face value, science really is a neutral-value tool. Governments can likewise provide benefit to any number of their citizens, or exclude and demonise any number of their citizens with dramatic consequences (as both past and recent events demonstrate). How "good" or "bad" anything is really comes down to the homo sapiens sapiens trying to use it, and there's the rub.

That's ridiculously monochromatic reasoning; the same can be used to justify anything that has an iota of positive value. What's pertinent is how good and how bad things are. Of course everything will seem neutral-value if you totally omit any measure of value.

Originally Posted by dr2005

I could point to a quite well-known example of why politics is a bad thing, but that would be in breach of Godwin's Law. As I said above in reply to Fletcher, arguing from extremes is not particularly rational.

Yes it is. Arguing only from extremes and ignoring the rest isn't rational, but neither is claiming that the extremes don't count. The possibility of dictatorships is extremely relevant to discussions of government, just as the existence of WBC and their ilk is relevant to discussions of religion.

Originally Posted by dr2005

You imply both arise from the requirements of their religion as opposed to entrenched societal norms. That is without evidence and quite spurious to boot.

Leviticus 18:22. 1 Timothy 2:12. Certainly doesn't help, does it?

Correlation doesn't imply causation, I grant you, but it's a hell of a strong correlation. What explanation would you offer for it?

Originally Posted by dr2005

I would ask for evidence that religion is "a large part of the problem" compared with other contributing factors, but I'm sceptical as to whether any is available. The fact that it is one factor among others does not absolve it, as you say, but nor does it make it a suitable scapegoat for the ills of the world - particularly as such attempts, more often than not, seem to be attempts to excuse general screw-ups of our own doing.

You seem to continue dancing around the point. Yes, religion can have some small benefits. No, religion is not the only evil in the world. Yes, most religious people are not bad. These are not adequate defenses to the accusation that religion does significantly more harm in the world than good. Of course you can only be expected to address one point at a time, but you shouldn't conclude at the end of each of them things like "but nor does it make it a suitable scapegoat for the ills of the world" as though the point were meant to stand alone.

Originally Posted by dr2005

I suspect I have may missed such discussion on the absence of tangible benefits from religion, as I cannot find one above. Assertion is not discussion, after all. From my own experience, I would argue that religion can provide, among other benefits, sense of community, promotion of compassion and support for those less fortunate, a moral compass and inspiration for people to attempt to set right the wrongs of life without requiring reward. All of those could be considered benefits. It is a mistake to presume that the only benefit religion can possibly provide is a post-death promise.

I'm sure religion does provide these things for the religious, but that's only a tangible benefit if those things are notably less present in the non-religious.

Originally Posted by dr2005

If you would like to look back at my response to Fletcher's similar appeal to fiction argument, you would perhaps appreciate the glaring flaw in that argument. We know quite well that the tooth fairy is actually a "fairy tale" (pardon the pun) and that it's really just your parents taking your teeth and slipping some change in in its place. I also don't recall the tooth fairy coming with a life philosophy, so on a number of levels that really does fall apart. On a more personal note, I don't take particularly kindly to being called "mentally ill", particularly as I have had experiences with people who were suffering in that way and it's not particularly pleasant. Please be more careful with your choice of words in future.

A great deal of your faith in Christianity seems to rest on the bible being somehow special among ancient religious texts; if this is so, I might suggest that you do some significant research into the origins and writing of the bible.