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from the Fee-Fie-Fou-Fhum-Fideism-Falafel dept.
Commentary at Salon!
Should you believe in a God? Not according to most academic philosophers. A comprehensive survey revealed that only about 14 percent of English speaking professional philosophers are theists. As for what little religious belief remains among their colleagues, most professional philosophers regard it as a strange aberration among otherwise intelligent people. Among scientists the situation is much the same. Surveys of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, composed of the most prestigious scientists in the world, show that religious belief among them is practically nonexistent, about 7 percent.
[...] Now nothing definitely follows about the truth of a belief from what the majority of philosophers or scientists think. But such facts might cause believers discomfort. There has been a dramatic change in the last few centuries in the proportion of believers among the highly educated in the Western world. In the European Middle Ages belief in a God was ubiquitous, while today it is rare among the intelligentsia. This change occurred primarily because of the rise of modern science and a consensus among philosophers that arguments for the existence of gods, souls, afterlife and the like were unconvincing. Still, despite the view of professional philosophers and world-class scientists, religious beliefs have a universal appeal. What explains this?
[...] First, if you defend such beliefs by claiming that you have a right to your opinion, however unsupported by evidence it might be, you are referring to a political or legal right, not an epistemic one. You may have a legal right to say whatever you want, but you have epistemic justification only if there are good reasons and evidence to support your claim. If someone makes a claim without concern for reasons and evidence, we should conclude that they simply don't care about what's true. We shouldn't conclude that their beliefs are true because they are fervently held.
Another problem is that fideism—basing one's beliefs exclusively on faith—makes belief arbitrary, leaving no way to distinguish one religious belief from another. Fideism allows no reason to favor your preferred beliefs or superstitions over others. If I must accept your beliefs without evidence, then you must accept mine, no matter what absurdity I believe in. But is belief without reason and evidence worthy of rational beings? Doesn't it perpetuate the cycle of superstition and ignorance that has historically enslaved us? I agree with W.K. Clifford. "It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." Why? Because your beliefs affect other people, and your false beliefs may harm them.
I am checking to see what the Church of the Flying Spagetti Monster has to say about all this.
(Score: 4, Informative) by fyngyrz on Monday January 21 2019, @12:49AM (5 children)
That is a patently false assertion.
There are many reasons not to do things that are based on mutual benefit and social benefit that have nothing at all to do with theism.
Theism tends to be a source of "don't do this" because "we said so", rather than "because it is actually bad."
Society has laws that serve to tell people "don't do that because it is bad", and furthermore, those laws tend to have real punishments in the actual reality people exist in (as opposed to an imaginary punishment laid out in a book of apparent fiction.) Real punishment can be a deterrent when people might otherwise be inclined to go off the rails.
What we don't need are a bunch of threats based on who you sleep with, if you're married or not when you do, how many types of fibers are in your clothes, whether you have appropriately proselytized your beliefs today, etc. Not bullshit threats, as in those from books of obvious fiction, and not real threats, as in ostracization and/or worse from the pitchforks-and-torches carrying droolers.
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Don't anthropomorphize my t-shirt.
It hates that.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 21 2019, @02:06AM (3 children)
And you blame theism for that?
Do you reckon if the US congress (or any other Parliament) will be made exclusively of atheists they'll stop saying "don't do this because we said so"?
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Monday January 21 2019, @02:26AM (2 children)
Yes, I do.
I also blame congress for similar idiocy.
No. But there is a big difference: We can pressure congress to change things, and they will. You can pressure dogmatic theism pretty damned hard and they'll just point at their books and stand their ground. It's been 2,000 years and they're still stuck on a whole bunch of ridiculous points. Congress has shown constant and much greater improvement over a shorter span of time, and that was with the miasma of dogmatic theism creeping around there like a particularly insidious plague. I think it is entirely possible that a fully atheistic congress might do better.
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Kleptomaniacs always take things literally.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 21 2019, @02:48AM
You missed a good part of my point.
The one in which 'do as I say' is not a religious-only phenomenon, but a human (society) one - and religion is only one manifestation.
Missing this point, your prone to think eliminating or reducing the impact of religion will lower the 'do as I say' in this world. Which may be a total illusion: as soon as you'd (by absurd) eliminate religion as a source of authoritarianism, very likely others will pop-up and grow in its place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Insightful) by redneckmother on Monday January 21 2019, @03:11AM
So many good and valid arguments, so few moderation points!
Thank you.
To paraphrase a certain atheist, "I can be moral without believing in a god. I've raped and murdered all the people I've wanted to; precisely, NONE."
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 21 2019, @09:59AM
It is not all that patently false. There are people who need to be told what to do, how to do it, and when. Visit any prison. You will find bug-fuck crazy people who are violent and abusive all the time, with or without provocation. You will also find "model prisoners" who only got where they are now, because there was no one to tell them what to do, or not to do. Some people really do need guidance, just to get along in society.
Our society today wants to remove all guidance. Remove discipline from the school, remove any reference to religion, remove parental authority - on and on it goes. To cite a scripture, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: " is enough to bring child services to your house.
It seems to be presumed that young men and women just know naturally how to get along in society. They don't have to be taught. Well - they DO have to be taught, and Sunday School seems to be at least as effective as public school.