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These results, at least so far (ath=16, dei=4, the=5), are encouraging. I know you'd expect to see less religion in a science and tech community, but I've neve

by frisco 18y ago

These results, at least so far (ath=16, dei=4, the=5), are encouraging. I know you'd expect to see less religion in a science and tech community, but I've never seen anything beyond my group of friends, even in the scientific community, where atheists outnumber theists. I'm sometimes split between the views that religion is harmless and comforting for those who believe and should just be left alone, versus every service implicitly building the legitimacy of extremists. If church (or islamic services, or temple) didn't happen normally, extremists would just be obviously crazy with arcane rituals from the past thousand years; but, since it's all so ingrained in our cultural experience, less of a leap is need to understand extremists, which builds this low-level legitimacy for many people, even if we believe that they're criminals. Just by everything I've ever learned about reason and the scientific method, and everything I've ever read, while I can completely understand why people would _want_ to believe, it's completely mystifying as to why the vast majority of the world's population (well, in the free, information-rich societies) could make themselves believe. It just doesn't make sense to me, given all evidence is so clearly, hugely against it. (Which, I guess, is kind of the point -- which also doesn't make any sense.)

deleted 18y ago
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DanielBMarkham 18y ago
logic alert. It just doesn't make sense to me, given all evidence is so clearly, hugely against it. You can't have evidence against something that does not exist. That's like saying all the evidence is against there being a real-live cartoon Donald Duck. What we can say is that there is a lack of evidence for something. We can further say that unless there is evidence for something we don't see any point in believing in it. But you can't disprove a negative. There is no evidence against God. We simply have no scientific way to talk about God existing. There is a lack of proof. Different animal.
- gjm11 18y ago
  You certainly can have evidence against something that doesn't exist. There is very strong evidence that there are no (ordinary) elephants in the room I'm in right now, for instance: elephants are large and easy to see, and the fact that I see none when I look around is evidence for their absence. Direct evidence that there are no invisible miniature elephantoids made from weakly-interacting Dark Matter in the room, of course, is harder to come by. Similarly: If someone believes in a god who regularly answers prayers, works miracles, etc., then a shortage of miracles and surprisingly answered prayers is evidence against the existence of that person's god. If someone else believes in a god whose primary objective is to avoid notice, it's hard to see how anything could be evidence for or against its existence. (And, by the same token, it's hard to see why anyone would care much whether it exists or not. A god whose existence we can't get evidence about is ipso facto one that makes little difference to how the world is.) ... Except that it's pretty plausible that some sort of formalized Ockham's Razor works, where your initial evaluation of how likely something is looks more or less like 2^-(length of shortest complete description). In that case, a universe with a maximally-self-hiding god is much less likely than a universe without one. Anyway, most theists believe in gods that are (perhaps intermittently) active in the world: answering prayer, healing sick people, raising people from the dead, etc. There's no reason why there shouldn't be evidence for or against the existence of such a god. (I think the evidence is heavily against; others disagree.)
  - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    There is very strong evidence that there are no (ordinary) elephants in the room That's assuming a closed system open to inspection. The universe is neither of those. I can say what is or isn't in the room because I have total control over and full freedom to inspect the room to the level of detail required to find elephants. Your example simply doesn't translate. You pivot then into the "far away God is the same as missing God" argument. That's another can of worms (One which I did not go into) What I find humorous is that every 80 years or so we see a resurgence in either atheism or deism. Each time the generation feels like it's way smarter than the one before it. Only the arguments are all the same as they were three iterations ago -- or three thousand years ago for that matter. The existence and nature of a God, if there is one/them/it, isn't as easy as looking for elephants. But that's what makes the conversation fun -- as long as everyone acts in a civil manner.
jacoblyles 18y ago
Religion has been part of society since the days of pre-human hominids. It does not exist solely because of belief. I am willing to bet that few Greeks literally believed that a god carried the sun across the sky in a chariot. Rather, religion fulfills many cultural and social functions that our increasingly secular world has not yet found good substitutes for. I went to church on Christmas to hear some carols, and I was struck by the fact that I was actually surrounded by people from different age groups and with different life experience from myself. The younger folk helped out the old when they got sick, and the older folk helped the people with little children when they needed a sitter. This kind of social cohesion doesn't exist in secular society, where I spend 99% of my time surrounded by people within a five-year age interval. If you want to explain the frequency of religious belief, you would be wise to look more towards the social functions that it fulfills, and less at its intellectual arguments. There was an interesting post on here the other day, which was dead-ed, about this very topic. See here: http://commentlog.org/bid/4527/Myth-and-Cult-How-atheists-misunderstand-religion http://commentlog.org/bid/4527/Myth-and-Cult-How-atheists-mi...
- Caligula 18y ago
  "The younger folk helped out the old when they got sick, and the older folk helped the people with little children when they needed a sitter. This kind of social cohesion doesn't exist in secular society" Religious people do not have a monopoly on kindness. If you compare social programs in religious vs non secular societies(e.g europe vs USA) you will find the exact opposite of what you say.
  - jacoblyles 18y ago
    For this American, the unique thing wasn't so much kindness but contact. I may be a nice guy, but from day to day I just don't run into anyone under 22 or over 30.

by frisco 18y ago

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

DanielBMarkham 18y ago

logic alert. It just doesn't make sense to me, given all evidence is so clearly, hugely against it. You can't have evidence against something that does not exist. That's like saying all the evidence is against there being a real-live cartoon Donald Duck. What we can say is that there is a lack of evidence for something. We can further say that unless there is evidence for something we don't see any point in believing in it. But you can't disprove a negative. There is no evidence against God. We simply have no scientific way to talk about God existing. There is a lack of proof. Different animal.

gjm11 18y ago
You certainly can have evidence against something that doesn't exist. There is very strong evidence that there are no (ordinary) elephants in the room I'm in right now, for instance: elephants are large and easy to see, and the fact that I see none when I look around is evidence for their absence. Direct evidence that there are no invisible miniature elephantoids made from weakly-interacting Dark Matter in the room, of course, is harder to come by. Similarly: If someone believes in a god who regularly answers prayers, works miracles, etc., then a shortage of miracles and surprisingly answered prayers is evidence against the existence of that person's god. If someone else believes in a god whose primary objective is to avoid notice, it's hard to see how anything could be evidence for or against its existence. (And, by the same token, it's hard to see why anyone would care much whether it exists or not. A god whose existence we can't get evidence about is ipso facto one that makes little difference to how the world is.) ... Except that it's pretty plausible that some sort of formalized Ockham's Razor works, where your initial evaluation of how likely something is looks more or less like 2^-(length of shortest complete description). In that case, a universe with a maximally-self-hiding god is much less likely than a universe without one. Anyway, most theists believe in gods that are (perhaps intermittently) active in the world: answering prayer, healing sick people, raising people from the dead, etc. There's no reason why there shouldn't be evidence for or against the existence of such a god. (I think the evidence is heavily against; others disagree.)
- DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  There is very strong evidence that there are no (ordinary) elephants in the room That's assuming a closed system open to inspection. The universe is neither of those. I can say what is or isn't in the room because I have total control over and full freedom to inspect the room to the level of detail required to find elephants. Your example simply doesn't translate. You pivot then into the "far away God is the same as missing God" argument. That's another can of worms (One which I did not go into) What I find humorous is that every 80 years or so we see a resurgence in either atheism or deism. Each time the generation feels like it's way smarter than the one before it. Only the arguments are all the same as they were three iterations ago -- or three thousand years ago for that matter. The existence and nature of a God, if there is one/them/it, isn't as easy as looking for elephants. But that's what makes the conversation fun -- as long as everyone acts in a civil manner.

jacoblyles 18y ago

Religion has been part of society since the days of pre-human hominids. It does not exist solely because of belief. I am willing to bet that few Greeks literally believed that a god carried the sun across the sky in a chariot. Rather, religion fulfills many cultural and social functions that our increasingly secular world has not yet found good substitutes for. I went to church on Christmas to hear some carols, and I was struck by the fact that I was actually surrounded by people from different age groups and with different life experience from myself. The younger folk helped out the old when they got sick, and the older folk helped the people with little children when they needed a sitter. This kind of social cohesion doesn't exist in secular society, where I spend 99% of my time surrounded by people within a five-year age interval. If you want to explain the frequency of religious belief, you would be wise to look more towards the social functions that it fulfills, and less at its intellectual arguments. There was an interesting post on here the other day, which was dead-ed, about this very topic. See here: http://commentlog.org/bid/4527/Myth-and-Cult-How-atheists-misunderstand-religion http://commentlog.org/bid/4527/Myth-and-Cult-How-atheists-mi...

Caligula 18y ago
"The younger folk helped out the old when they got sick, and the older folk helped the people with little children when they needed a sitter. This kind of social cohesion doesn't exist in secular society" Religious people do not have a monopoly on kindness. If you compare social programs in religious vs non secular societies(e.g europe vs USA) you will find the exact opposite of what you say.
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  For this American, the unique thing wasn't so much kindness but contact. I may be a nice guy, but from day to day I just don't run into anyone under 22 or over 30.