Religion The Phenomenon of Religiophobia

[Father Jack]

This is a loaded question which attempts to steer this conversation into a semantic debate. A case can be made for a yes and/or a no answer. You're steering clear of how faith applies to a lack of belief in God's existence.

All the evidence we have indicates that the sun will rise tomorrow. Does that require faith? If not, does the complete lack of evidence work the other way, ie that no faith is required to disbelieve the existence of that for which there is absolutely no proof?

Why should science be dragged down to the level of religion?

 

[jinny1]

Lack of belief in what? Without specifying what "lack of belief" consists of, it isn't belief. But, Atheists have a belief that God doesn't exist, and that's a specific something to lack belief in, thus it's belief, and given God can't be proved to exist by scientific means, belief or lack of belief in God requires faith.

But you are atheist too, so the logic applies to you too.

People like us are atheists for just one more God than you are.

 

[Partridge]

Sure you have a belief. You've admitted such yourself. You've admitted that you believe that religious belief is a "bunch of rather silly fairy tales" and that such belief is "very silly". You hold this belief in spite of not knowing if God exists or not, hence your belief being an act of faith.

Wrong. I never said I "believe". I think religious beliefs are utterly silly and ridiculous fairy tales. But useful for keeping ignorant people happy.

I don't "believe" in anything. I accept certain provisional truths based on evidence. Of which religion has precisely none.

I think god (uncapitalised, there's absolutely nothing special about it) almost certainly does not exist, in the same way that Thor, Wotan, Baal, Astarte, Krishna, Zeus, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster almost certainly don't exist either.

And to correct you again - I don't "hold this belief". I hold this thought.

See the difference? Belief is not thought. One requires thinking. One doesn't.

 

[Partridge]

What are these missing links you talk of? Evidence for evolution is so overwhelming and obvious that you would be stupid not to accept it. Even the Catholic Church believes it lol.

Most of these missing links are from uneducated creationists who have no idea what evolution really is. My Christian friend thinks evolution is wrong because we still see apes even though we evolved from them.

We evolved from a common ancestor we shared with them. And as we have discovered more about common descent and phylogeny, we know that whatever clade we branched from, we are still a part of. As an example, Birds aren't descended from Dinosaurs, they still are Dinosaurs.

We are still Apes. And we are still Monkeys. And we are still Catarrhines. And we are still Anthropoids. And we are still Haplorhines. And we are still Primates. And we are still Eutherians. And we are still Cynodonts. And we are still Therapsids. And we are still Synapsids. And we are still Amniotes. And we are still Anthracosaurs. And we are still Tetrapods. And we are still Stegocephalians. And we are still Sarcopterygians. And we are still Gnathostomes. And we are still Vertebrates. And we are still Craniates. And we are still Chordates. And we are still Deuterostomes. And we are still Coelemates. And we are still Bilaterians. And we are still Animals. And we are still Opisthokonts. And we are still Eukaryotes.

 

[jinny1]

We evolved from a common ancestor we shared with them. And as we have discovered more about common descent and phylogeny, we know that whatever clade we branched from, we are still a part of. As an example, Birds aren't descended from Dinosaurs, they still are Dinosaurs.

We are still Apes. And we are still Monkeys. And we are still Catarrhines. And we are still Anthropoids. And we are still Haplorhines. And we are still Primates. And we are still Eutherians. And we are still Cynodonts. And we are still Therapsids. And we are still Synapsids. And we are still Amniotes. And we are still Anthracosaurs. And we are still Tetrapods. And we are still Stegocephalians. And we are still Sarcopterygians. And we are still Gnathostomes. And we are still Vertebrates. And we are still Craniates. And we are still Chordates. And we are still Deuterostomes. And we are still Coelemates. And we are still Bilaterians. And we are still Animals. And we are still Opisthokonts. And we are still Eukaryotes.

Aren't apes and Monkeys in a different family of classification? Anyway so are you like a university professor or some s**t? You definitely know a lot about science lol. Respect!

I think you definitely did some science degree at uni..

 

[Partridge]

Aren't apes and Monkeys in a different family of classification? Anyway so are you like a university professor or some s**t? You definitely know a lot about science lol. Respect!

I think you definitely did some science degree at uni..

Not quite. Each new branch becomes a subset of the parent branch, and so on up the line to all parent forms. So although we're now Primates, with all their required characteristics (and there are so many more than I thought), we still meet the requirements to be a Chordate, or Craniate, or Gnathostome, and so on. I'm still reading up on how cladistic phylogeny works, which really revolutionised how systematic classification works.

Thanks for the compliment - I can only wish! I'm studying part time now and might extend it to a full science degree instead of a few subjects. Depends on workload and family etc.

Endlessly fascinating subject though.

 

[Niximus]

Thanks for the compliment - I can only wish! I'm studying part time now and might extend it to a full science degree instead of a few subjects. Depends on workload and family etc.

It is amazing how much even a little studying teaches you. This is why cannot respect people who have major misconceptions about science (e.g. if we evolved from x, then why is there still x").

I have always been into science and last year decided to study as a hobby and enrolled in a Bachelor of Science (Evolutionary Biology), being a hobby it has unfortunately taken a back seat to other things for the time being and as such I have only completed two subjects.

Even with such a small amount completed, I have learnt a massive amount.

 

[jinny1]

Not quite. Each new branch becomes a subset of the parent branch, and so on up the line to all parent forms. So although we're now Primates, with all their required characteristics (and there are so many more than I thought), we still meet the requirements to be a Chordate, or Craniate, or Gnathostome, and so on. I'm still reading up on how cladistic phylogeny works, which really revolutionised how systematic classification works.

Thanks for the compliment - I can only wish! I'm studying part time now and might extend it to a full science degree instead of a few subjects. Depends on workload and family etc.

Endlessly fascinating subject though.

Yea i know how the classification system work, i had to memorise the whole thing in first year

What i meant to say is that apes (including humans) belong in the family Hominoidea whilst the monkeys are in the family Cercopithecidae. Primate falls under Order classification.
You said before that we are still apes and we are still monkeys.

But i thought we are distant cousins of monkeys as we are not from the same family. You can't say we are both apes and monkeys if they are in different Families.

Yea i loved learning about Evolution in first year, in second year i had to do pre-req subjects for postgrad med/dent, but next year i will be doing2 subjects just on Evolution

 

[Partridge]

Yea i know how the classification system work, i had to memorise the whole thing in first year

What i meant to say that apes (including humans) belong in the family Hominoidea whilst the monkeys are in the family Cercopithecidae. Primate falls under Order classification.
You said before that we are still apes and we are still monkeys.

But i thought we are distant cousins of monkeys as we are not from the same family. You can't say we are both apes and monkeys if they are in different Families.

Cool, I'm envious! Yep my understanding is - and I could be wrong - that Hominoidea is now classified under Propliopithecoidea (instead of Cercopithecidae), which is a subset of Catarrhini (Old World monkeys), which in turn is a subset of Anthropoidea (monkeys).

 

[jinny1]

Cool, I'm envious! Yep my understanding is - and I could be wrong - that Hominoidea is now classified under Propliopithecoidea (instead of Cercopithecidae), which is a subset of Catarrhini (Old World monkeys), which in turn is a subset of Anthropoidea (monkeys).

Lol i have no idea what you are talking about, we never studied past the standard Kingdom, phylum, subphylum, class, order, family, genus and species

My lecturer seemed to have a problem with the rather arbitrary nature of these classifications and double standards because humans think we are extra special.

Drosophila melanogaster & D. ananassae has estimated divergence time of 12 million years ago and share same genus and subgenus.

Pan troglodytes & Homo sapiens has estimated divergence time of 6Mya and share >98% of coding DNA but different genus & family.

Goddamn these self-important humans lol

 

[tesseract]

Wrong. I never said I "believe". I think religious beliefs are utterly silly and ridiculous fairy tales. But useful for keeping ignorant people happy.

I don't "believe" in anything. I accept certain provisional truths based on evidence. Of which religion has precisely none.

I think god (uncapitalised, there's absolutely nothing special about it) almost certainly does not exist, in the same way that Thor, Wotan, Baal, Astarte, Krishna, Zeus, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster almost certainly don't exist either.

And to correct you again - I don't "hold this belief". I hold thisthought.

See the difference? Belief is not thought. One requires thinking. One doesn't.

Semantic argument is semantic. It's the same thing. "I think", in this context, is the same as "I believe".

Held "provisional truths" is the same as "I believe", because your supposed 'provisional truth', in this regard, isn't a solid fact. So, it's, therefore, a belief. Not even semantic arguments can keep your own BS straight.

"Almost certainly doesn't exist" used as a "provisional truth" is a faith based belief, because it can't be proved. This is my point.

I don't buy into your semantic spin.

 

[Partridge]

Semantic argument is semantic. It's the same thing. "I think", in this context, is the same as "I believe".

Held "provisional truths" is the same as "I believe", because your supposed 'provisional truth', in this regard, isn't a solid fact. So, it's, therefore, a belief. Not even semantic arguments can keep your own BS straight.

"Almost certainly doesn't exist" used as a "provisional truth" is a faith based belief, because it can't be proved. This is my point.

I don't buy into your semantic spin.

Good. I don't buy your bullshit.

 

[Partridge]

Lol i have no idea what you are talking about, we never studied past the standard Kingdom, phylum, subphylum, class, order, family, genus and species

My lecturer seemed to have a problem with the rather arbitrary nature of these classifications and double standards because humans think we are extra special.

Drosophila melanogaster & D. ananassae has estimated divergence time of 12 million years ago and share same genus and subgenus.

Pan troglodytes & Homo sapiens has estimated divergence time of 6Mya and share >98% of coding DNA but different genus & family.

Goddamn these self-important humans lol

Yeah I've been watching some excellent videos on YouTube. From what I understand - and this comes from some books as well - the Linnaen System got harder and harder to maintain, and more and more species ended up in wastebaskets where they didn't really belong to anything. In addition to the standard Linnaen grouping were added superclass and superorder and other extra layers, until it just become impossible. Which eventually gave way to cladistic taxonomy, where theoretically every clade is monophyletic - it contains itself and all subsequent descendents.

It takes time to permeate no doubt, I went to the Museum not long ago and they had an early crocodilian listed as a "mammal-like reptile". Prothero (2007) states pretty clearly that the term is now obsolete and has been superseded by "synapsid". I'm sure they'll update it soon.

Good old Drosophilia - biologists everywhere love the humble fruit fly.

 

[Partridge]

It is amazing how much even a little studying teaches you. This is why cannot respect people who have major misconceptions about science (e.g. if we evolved from x, then why is there still x").

I have always been into science and last year decided to study as a hobby and enrolled in a Bachelor of Science (Evolutionary Biology), being a hobby it has unfortunately taken a back seat to other things for the time being and as such I have only completed two subjects.

Even with such a small amount completed, I have learnt a massive amount.

Man, I am seriously envious. I'm doing a (mostly) IT degree, but I've loaded up quite a few science subjects as either a minor stream or electives. Cannot wait. But you're so correct, even a book or two can enhance your knowledge so much.

 

[jinny1]

Good old Drosophilia - biologists everywhere love the humble fruit fly.

haha yep, it's pretty much all Drosophila, E. coli or lambda phage in my genetics lectures

 

[Niximus]

haha yep, it's pretty much all Drosophila, E. coli or lambda phage in my genetics lectures

+ HeLa

 

[Catfish Alley]

That's your only response???.....

Sorry, only just saw this. You are correct that passages of some religions are in direct opposition of evolution. I don't believe that the majority of people with religious belief take a literal approach though. I think something like 60% of people in Australia identify with a religion. You'd probably find that 95% of those would also believe in evolution. I do not believe that a scientist cannot have spirituality.

 

[jinny1]

Sorry, only just saw this. You are correct that passages of some religions are in direct opposition of evolution. I don't believe that the majority of people with religious belief take a literal approach though. I think something like 60% of people in Australia identify with a religion. You'd probably find that 95% of those would also believe in evolution. I do not believe that a scientist cannot have spirituality.

Then how do you deal with the inconsistencies between evolution and the bible??? You said you believe in Evolution, but you can't believe in two opposing ideas at once. There are fundamental contradictions. whether you take the bible literal or not, since half of the points i raised in my previous post really had nothing to do with literal interpretations...it was about the fundamental basis of Christianity.

And then there are further problems arising if you try to cherry-pick bits out of the bible and say that is not meant to be taken literally.

Because you are basically admitting a god-of-the-gaps, confining God to the gaps in scientific explanations, undermining biblical doctrines, such as God's incarnation through Christ.

If the Creation narrative is only an allegory, what about other parts of the Bible such as the translation of Elijah to heaven, Jonah and the big fish, and the miracles and resurrection of Jesus? If we dismiss the accuracy of the biblical Creation account, we are free to dismiss other parts of Scripture and thus become the judge of what is or is not true in spite of what Jesus and the Bible authors say.

If we look carefully at the biblical creation account, it is very difficult to come to any other conclusion but that Moses, the author, intended to describe literal, twenty-four-hour days. The Hebrew word, yom, has the same meaning as our English word day. In both languages the word can refer to literal days or it can refer to longer periods of time. For example, we may use expressions such as “the day of our forefathers.” However, in Hebrew, if a numeral accompanies the word yom, it always means a literal day. There are no exceptions. In the Creation account, yom is associated with day one, day two, day three, etc. Moses also makes use of the following expressions: evening and morning (see Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, etc.), light and darkness (see Genesis 1:5), night and day (see Genesis1:5). He could hardly have made it more clear that he was referring to literal days.

Sure, you can have spirituality but that's different to Christianity/Religion.

 

[amer]

Religious thinking is unarguably linked with most of the world's great atrocities and human disasters. The vast, vast majority.

That's all there is to it. Religion is fundamentally irrational, and gives humans irrational frameworks to think rationally within. The cognitive result? Broken and/or distorted value systems. End results? Death, oppression, war, discrimination, corruption, many more. Nationalism is one of the most damaging religions.

The OP asked why "religiophobia", as he puts it, is such an increasing thing? The millions upon millions of deaths, racial mistreatment, segregation, hypocrisy, manipulation of human value systems (to carry out tasks humans otherwise never would), the ****ing of children, suicide attacks, persecution by sex, orientation, hair and eye colour, ancestry, encroachment on freedoms - you know, the myriad horrible things religion not only causes but encourages - probably weighs in as basis for this sentiment.

The most ridiculous retort I hear from religious people is "why the **** are you hating on my beliefs, what harm am I doing to anyone?!"

This one always depresses me because it so captures the stupidity, non-reflection and ignorance of the typical human. If you are religious, you are an enabler. If you're a catholic, that "transformative" work you see being done by your friend for a local family struggling to put food on the table is coming at the DIRECT cost of the lives of millions of third world human beings who have been told not to wear protection during sex. You don't see these costs, you don't -feel- these costs; the atmosphere under the church roof or the state of the table you're sitting at seems in order. So to your narrow brain, religion is harmless.

Hitler, Manson, "liberation", 9/11 - religion. Discouraging critical thought.

Religion is not to be confused with spirituality.

Good deeds can and do exist independently of religion. The difference? The place from which my good deeds come does not murder, oppress or otherwise hurt the lives of innocent people everywhere, all the time. I feel like that stuff is sort of, you know, counterproductive and contradictory to the whole "message of Christ."

 

[Catfish Alley]

Sure, you can have spirituality but that's different to Christianity/Religion.

Good point. I guess I believe in a spirituality but not so much a specific religion. I just associate more with Christianity because I was raised in Australia, have holidays for Easter, Christmas etc. I think there would be a lot of people that would be the same.

 

[Catfish Alley]

The OP asked why "religiophobia", as he puts it, is such an increasing thing? The millions upon millions of deaths, racial mistreatment, segregation, hypocrisy, manipulation of human value systems (to carry out tasks humans otherwise never would), the ****ing of children, suicide attacks, persecution by sex, orientation, hair and eye colour, ancestry, encroachment on freedoms - you know, the myriad horrible things religion not only causes but encourages - probably weighs in as basis for this sentiment.

These things would exist even if there was no religion. Religion is often used as a crutch or an excuse for people to take advantage. Religion isn't the cause. It's the curtain that people hide behind. If it didn't exists, people would find something else and there would still be terrible things in the world. You still can see it in countries where religion has been outlawed.

 

[Partridge]

These things would exist even if there was no religion. Religion is often used as a crutch or an excuse for people to take advantage. Religion isn't the cause. It's the curtain that people hide behind. If it didn't exists, people would find something else and there would still be terrible things in the world. You still can see it in countries where religion has been outlawed.

Hmm, interesting point you raise. There is a very strong correlation that the more religious a society is, the more dysfunctional it is. Your final sentence about countries that have no religion, I can think of no better example than the Scandanavian nations. Far better with how they treat their citizens to any Islamic country, and the US for that matter.

I agree that certain crimes will continue to be committed. The difference is, with religion, they are committed in the name of that religion. Very few crimes will be or have been committed in the name of non-belief. It's not a coincidence that in the last 200 years as literacy has skyrocketed, more and more information has become freely available, and international trade has replaced war as the main methods that nations do business with each other, violence around the world has plummeted. Secular thinking has played a big part in that.

 

[Catfish Alley]

There is a very strong correlation that the more religious a society is, the more dysfunctional it is

I guess it depends what places your looking at. For example, communist countries discourage freedom of religion but certainly have had some of the worst human rights records. My point really is that religion or countries themselves are not bad. It's people and their manipulation of religion, politics and the disadvantaged and/or easily swayed that causes so many issues.

 

[jinny1]

Good point. I guess I believe in a spirituality but not so much a specific religion. I just associate more with Christianity because I was raised in Australia, have holidays for Easter, Christmas etc. I think there would be a lot of people that would be the same.

What the heck?? Do you even have a firm belief or just sitting on the fence?

 

[Catfish Alley]

What the heck?? Do you even have a firm belief or just sitting on the fence?

I never said I was Christian. Just that I associate with that religion more because of the society I grew up in.

I guess I am sitting on the fence. Agnostic. Fairly common I guess. It's not really something anybody can claim to know all the answers too.