Tom Capuder#Theists:
Some of you think the evidence for #evolution is insufficient.
Where’s sufficient evidence for a #god
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an #atheist vs #faith
myrmepropagandistI'm confused why anyone would want "evidence" for God. Isn't faith supposed to be an evidence-free activity?
Exactly, which is a good reason to oppose it.
For instance, in the case of evolution vs. creationism, evidence favors one side, and nothing but imagination is responsible for the other.
Faith is pretending to know things you don't know. And that's never a good basis for decision-making.
Evidence free activities have value. They can help us to understand how our ancestors may have seen the world. They can allow one to experiences a sense of mystery and feel a real connection to the religious traditions of the past.
It's just important to remember that they are "evidence free" and won't be able to really tell you anything useful in the empirical sense.
Why is it necessary to use evidence-free methods to understand how ancestors saw the world? We have enough evidence in writings and archeology to make informed judgements about ancestors' behavior.
I often experience "a sense of mystery" when I contemplate the world and universe. There's nothing wrong with not yet having answers to mysteries. It isn't advisable, however, to provide pat, soothing, imaginary "answers."
We've learned so much as a species that it's no longer necessary to revere religious traditions of the past, none of which have any place in the real world of today, IMO. They should be assigned to the dustheap of discarded mythologies.
Religions provide social cohesion. People like them. They are important to human history. They shouldn't be forgotten or treated as obsolete, but rather, like folk stories practiced and celebrated with awareness of their limitations.
Of course many people won't want anything to do with this, and that's fine too.
Nate Gaylinn@futurebird @tomcapuder I've struggled with this. As a rational materialist, I reject religious ideas that are incompatible with science. For a long time, I thought that meant rejecting all of religion, and that believing in a higher power required proof of a higher power. But I now see that's misguided.
For me, it's because I had a superficial understanding of religion. A naive, literal view of the Bible is deeply problematic, but great spiritual thinkers have struggled with that since at least the middle ages. They found much better ways of engaging with these ideas that don't require false beliefs. And, like you say, it's largely about embracing ambiguity and non-literal views of reality.
Any attempt to erase religious practice becomes a form of cultural genocide, especially pernicious for those who have already targeted by cultural genocide.
I would hate to live in a world without the rhetorical traditions of the Black Baptist church, without Jewish cultures, without First People & their traditions.
It's not enough to write it down, it must be practiced.
I just don't think practice requires one to decide "this is the one and only way and truth"
How about we create a new culture where we take the best lessons from Dr King and all the religions and use them without the divine nonsense?
I've got it: We can call it "secular humanism."
And to build a fair and just society? The "Veil of Ignorance" is a good idea.
maria/summer@tomcapuder @ngaylinn @futurebird one particular insight that you might want to understand is that not all religions contain a creator god, or “higher power” gods. you say you want to discard all religion, and in saying so, you say you want to discard “higher powers.” higher powers than what? some faiths believe that nature is a higher power than human beings. is this false?
@tomcapuder @ngaylinn @futurebird for some beliefs, from cultures that did not speak english, the word “god” itself is already pushing a certain ontology. many faiths do not have gods like the abrahamic god, but people translate their beliefs in nature spirits to “gods” and conflate them. we can’t simply document these traditions and beliefs because that documentation is in imperfect language, and these traditions do not exist purely inside of history
@ngaylinn @tomcapuder @futurebird different religions exist in discourse and continuum with human experience. they are not always an imposition of imagination from above that is handed down authoritatively. many religions do not have “sola scriptura” books, like the abrahamic religions do, and the ones that do have sola scriptura are not necessarily married to that scripture
@ngaylinn @tomcapuder @futurebird the insights of these faiths are valuable because they are alternative rationalities and ethical guidelines. instead of asking “is it factually materialistically true,” what if you were to ask the much more interesting question, “how would i behave if i were to assume that it is true?”
@ultraconformist @tomcapuder @futurebird I agree, and I find it quite interesting to explore various religions to see how their ideas overlap and complement each other. It helps to see it as lots of imperfect humans trying their best to make sense of something vastly beyond us.