God

DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD ?

  • YES

    Votes: 19 52.8%

  • NO

    Votes: 17 47.2%
  • Total voters
    36
Trader333 said:
In my view it is very much the case that those who vehemently do not believe in God do so with the same fervour as those fanatics that do. Also some of the arguments put forward by those who are atheist ie, that unless something has provable fact it does not exist are as flawed as the arguments that God must exist. We do not live in a world where everything we know can be proven absolutely.


Paul
Click to expand...

Quite true. I believe that all organised religions and atheist philosophies are tools of politicians and those who wish to persuade the poor and ignorant that they are about to lose what they haven't got, anyway.

I keep my own counsel and have no problems until I listen to someone who professes to know more than I do.
 
On the downside
If there are Gods and they are mighty then what happened to all the Greek Gods, Roman Gods, Norse Gods and all the rest - they vanished without a squeak. I think we can safely assume that when the tribe lost the war their Gods were dumped.

Apparently the last person to have a talk with God ( outside of looney bins ) was Moses and we have only got his word on it.

On the upside
It does seem to get people to behave a bit better,barring the obvious exceptions of extremist nutters

In material terms people have done better out of Father Christmas.
 
Trader333 said:
In view of this discussion having been ongoing probably since the dawn of time and that regardless of scientific discovery there are as many top scientists who believe in God as who don't, then in my view it is unlikely that on T2W we will resolve this one way or another and as such it is pointless to try.


Paul
Click to expand...


Paul, with all due respect, absolutely wrong on every count!!


Magnus
 

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Are you saying there are more who do believe than don't :) ? This was based on an old article in a newspaper and in particular the Americans especially have more that believe than do not but either way I am open to being corrected.


Paul
 
Well, where do I start?...

Scientific American, September 1999

"Scientists and Religion in America"

"Whereas 90% of the general population has a distinct belief in a personal god and a life after death, only 40% of scientists on the B.S. level favor this belief in religion and merely 10 % of those who are considered 'eminent' scientists believe in a personal god or in an afterlife."

See Picture #1.



Nature, 394(6691):313, 23 July 1998

"Leading Scientists Still Reject God"

A recent survey of members of the National Academy of Sciences showed that 72% are outright atheists, 21% are agnostic and only 7% admit to belief in a personal God.

See Picture #2.



Skeptic, vol.6 #2 1998

"Do You Believe in God?"

In multiple studies, there is a negative correlation between theism and morality. By Franzblau's 1934 study, there's a negative correlation between religiousity and honesty. Ross 1950 shows atheists and agnostics are more likely to express their willingness to help the poor than the deeply religious. 1969 Hirschi and Stark found no correlation in lawbreaking by churchgoing children and non-churchgoing children.

This same Skeptic published the results of another study that compared professions and likelihood of believing in God. The general public was just over 90% likely to believe in God. Scientists in general were just under 40% likely. Mathematicians were just over 40% likely, biologists just under 30%, and physicists were barely over 20% likely to believe in God.

See Picture #3.



Do I need to go on?... ;)



Magnus
 

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The thing about *most* internet atheists is that they dont understand social phenomena.
Because of this they dont see the social value of religion, they just analyze it from a logical scientific point of view and then wonder why it exists even though it makes no sense.


in my experience people tend to be born as either an intellectual or a social being. Now it takes the intellectual some intelligence to shun religion because it makes no sense to them. But it takes more intelligence to realize why it has value to other people whos brains function differently.
 
bangzilla said:
The thing about *most* internet atheists is that they dont understand social phenomena.
Because of this they dont see the social value of religion, they just analyze it from a logical scientific point of view and then wonder why it exists even though it makes no sense.


in my experience people tend to be born as either an intellectual or a social being. Now it takes the intellectual some intelligence to shun religion because it makes no sense to them. But it takes more intelligence to realize why it has value to other people whos brains function differently.
Click to expand...


I'm not sure whether this is true or not (internet atheists not understanding social phenomena), but regardless...

Whether the "type" of brain one has determines their religiosity or not is absolutely no reason to believe (or have "faith") in something that does not have a single piece of supporting evidence, and moreover, is intrinsically detrimental to our modern society in many, many ways.

I must point out here that there is actually a factor of the brain that has been shown in numerous studies to be correlated to religiosity. That factor is intelligence. Although, it is infact inversely correlated.


Magnus
 
Yuppie said:
I'm not sure whether this is true or not (internet atheists not understanding social phenomena), but regardless...

Whether the "type" of brain one has determines their religiosity or not is absolutely no reason to believe (or have "faith") in something that does not have a single piece of supporting evidence, and moreover, is intrinsically detrimental to our modern society in many, many ways.

I must point out here that there is actually a factor of the brain that has been shown in numerous studies to be correlated to religiosity. That factor is intelligence. Although, it is infact inversely correlated.


Magnus
Click to expand...


Start with a cage containing five monkeys. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water. After awhile, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result. Pretty soon, when any monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted. Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, replace a third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because that's the way it's always been around here.

Intelligence or social engineering???
 
Atilla said:
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water. After awhile, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result. Pretty soon, when any monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted. Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, replace a third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because that's the way it's always been around here.

Intelligence or social engineering???
Click to expand...


I remember a friend of mine telling me this a few years ago. I was most amused by it. Interesting thought experiment.

I'm hard-pushed to find how it relates to the intelligence-religiosity relation in any significant way.

Perhaps, as you hinted, it may be more to do with social-conditioning (in whatever form) rather than intelligence. This may be true to a degree - I'm thinking of Iraq a few hundred years ago; it was a hotbed for technological development; a lot of good maths came out Iraq during that time. I don't even need to say anything about the state it is in now (meaning with respect to religious beliefs and not the US's hunger for oil).

To whatever degree social conditioning effects/causes religiosity, it pales in comparison to the factor of intelligence. Have a Wiki search for the 'cargo cults'. This shows both the effects of social-conditioning and intelligence (or lack thereof).


Magnus
 
Yuppie said:
I'm not sure whether this is true or not (internet atheists not understanding social phenomena), but regardless...

Whether the "type" of brain one has determines their religiosity or not is absolutely no reason to believe (or have "faith") in something that does not have a single piece of supporting evidence, and moreover, is intrinsically detrimental to our modern society in many, many ways.

I must point out here that there is actually a factor of the brain that has been shown in numerous studies to be correlated to religiosity. That factor is intelligence. Although, it is infact inversely correlated.


Magnus
Click to expand...

lol case in point
 
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