Rank your religiousness II

[CoccoBill]

I'd like to be clear that I am not at all saying "without a shred of doubt", but I am saying "for all practical reasons, with out a shred of doubt." I do not think this is unreasonable, and I think it is quite necessary when letting skepticism cloud the issue causes the continued propagation of this nonsense which has been boondoggling society for eons.

It is quite likely that we will never have solid proof to demonstrate there is no god. Just pretending we do and saying it out loud will not change anyone's convictions. Christianity, for example, is rigged to be resistant to facts and criticism, the bible is the only source of truth, questioning anything is heresy, any inconsistencies in the bible are just allegorical or God working in mysterious ways etc. Just perfect.

Before we can get rid of religions we need to get rid of the root causes that drive people to them, that create them. Religions are there to fill a need; human's need to explain the phenomena they witness, to find meaning and reason in all sorts of events happening around them, to get hope, comfort and protection. Science has only in the past couple hundred years started to shed some light on the most fundamental questions we've had for millenia, where do we come from, what is life, what happens when we die etc. When we have, if we ever do, a fairly complete understanding of all of these issues, when we've gotten rid of poverty, wars and all kinds of human suffering, maybe then we might have a chance to get rid of religions. I'm not holding my breath.

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It is quite likely that we will never have solid proof to demonstrate there is no god. Just pretending we do and saying it out loud will not change anyone's convictions.

You do realize that with a high enough degree of skepticism, we could never convict a murder suspect, right?

Christianity, for example, is rigged to be resistant to facts and criticism, the bible is the only source of truth, questioning anything is heresy, any inconsistencies in the bible are just allegorical or God working in mysterious ways etc. Just perfect.

Yep, religion is one charismatic murder suspect.

Before we can get rid of religions we need to get rid of the root causes that drive people to them, that create them. Religions are there to fill a need; human's need to explain the phenomena they witness, to find meaning and reason in all sorts of events happening around them, to get hope, comfort and protection. Science has only in the past couple hundred years started to shed some light on the most fundamental questions we've had for millenia, where do we come from, what is life, what happens when we die etc. When we have, if we ever do, a fairly complete understanding of all of these issues, when we've gotten rid of poverty, wars and all kinds of human suffering, maybe then we might have a chance to get rid of religions. I'm not holding my breath.

See, but, a world without these things is a world without religion-- it's also a world without a lot of good stuff; arguably a world without suffering is a world without joy... so you can see you've set an unreachable bar which maintains the status quo.

[CoccoBill]

You do realize that with a high enough degree of skepticism, we could never convict a murder suspect, right?

Then again, isn't that better than convicting all murder suspects without evidence?

See, but, a world without these things is a world without religion-- it's also a world without a lot of good stuff; arguably a world without suffering is a world without joy... so you can see you've set an unreachable bar which maintains the status quo.

Perhaps, but this is a different discussion. If I was granted the power to decide, I'd do the following, in order of priority:

1. Enforce separation of church and state everywhere
2. Stop preferential treatment of certain religions by governments
3. Privatize or shift to governments any functions currently operated by churches and funded by governments (foreign aid, substance abuse treatment, child care etc.) and stop all government funding of all churches
4. Make it illegal to not bitchslap anyone with any religious ideas

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Then again, isn't that better than convicting all murder suspects without evidence?

You adopted the position of the extreme. I pointed out how the position of the extreme is unreasonable. Now you are implying that I support the position of the opposite extreme. Hello CoccoBill-- oh, who's that? Your friend? What's his name? Oh, nice to meet you Mr. Strawman.

Perhaps, but this is a different discussion.

I'm pretty sure it's not? You calling it one seems really arbitrary to me?

If I was granted the power to decide, I'd do the following, in order of priority:

1. Enforce separation of church and state everywhere
2. Stop preferential treatment of certain religions by governments
3. Privatize or shift to governments any functions currently operated by churches and funded by governments (foreign aid, substance abuse treatment, child care etc.) and stop all government funding of all churches
4. Make it illegal to not bitchslap anyone with any religious ideas

luls.

[CoccoBill]

You adopted the position of the extreme. I pointed out how the position of the extreme is unreasonable. Now you are implying that I support the position of the opposite extreme. Hello CoccoBill-- oh, who's that? Your friend? What's his name? Oh, nice to meet you Mr. Strawman.

Your position was that we need no solid proof to declare something nonexistent (or guilty), mine is that we do. Just like my position may lead when applied to courts of law to false negatives, yours will lead to false positives. I don't see how my position is extreme, in fact I not only find it reasonable, but the only fundamentally correct one. How did I misrepresent your position and what is the strawman?

Perhaps, but this is a different discussion.

I'm pretty sure it's not? You calling it one seems really arbitrary to me?

First we were discussing whether we have in a meaningful sense any proof for or against a deity, then we started discussing what would be the sociologically, morally or preferentially best way to communicate about such proof or lack thereof.

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Your position was that we need no solid proof to declare something nonexistent (or guilty), mine is that we do. Just like my position may lead when applied to courts of law to false negatives, yours will lead to false positives. I don't see how my position is extreme, in fact I not only find it reasonable, but the only fundamentally correct one. How did I misrepresent your position and what is the strawman?

This is not my position in the least bit, and as far as the conviction in a court analogy goes it is where it starts to break down. The difference is there are no negative consequences to a false negative in regards to the factuality of superstitions. Furthermore I am not saying no solid proof is needed, I am saying absolute proof is not needed. There is solid proof, just not absolute proof. You may not have intended to strawman me, but you did, and then did it again in this post.

First we were discussing whether we have in a meaningful sense any proof for or against a deity, then we started discussing what would be the sociologically, morally or preferentially best way to communicate about such proof or lack thereof.

I guess I still don't see how this is a tangent as opposed to the natural flow of the discussion.

[CoccoBill]

This is not my position in the least bit, and as far as the conviction in a court analogy goes it is where it starts to break down. The difference is there are no negative consequences to a false negative in regards to the factuality of superstitions. Furthermore I am not saying no solid proof is needed, I am saying absolute proof is not needed. There is solid proof, just not absolute proof. You may not have intended to strawman me, but you did, and then did it again in this post.

So the difference between "solid proof" and "absolute proof" is in your opinion a strawman, and the former doesn't represent your position "in the least bit"?

Could you explain what is the difference between solid and absolute?

Could you list some pieces of solid proof that we have for the nonexistence of a god?