Comment by EleventhHour@lemmy.world on Attitude to Religion and its believers.

What is your general attitude towards those who believe in religion whether they are jewish, Muslim, Christian etc etc.

Do you get on well with any religious friends and neighbours?

Have you ever thought of believing in a religion at some point?

If you do not like the faiths, why?

If you DO, also why? Does this come from your family? Maybe something went bad during your life?

I get that Lemmy might have the same stereotype in Reddit that there are loads of atheists, but there’s a good reason why despite criticism of religion, it is still here.

P.S. I am not religious or anti religious in any fashion, I am agnostic.

Those who believe in an invisible sky wizard (or any other delusion) belong in psychotherapy.

It’s ok, I’ll pray for you /j

I have a spiritual need and that’s liberation from this discrimitory bullshit /srs

As someone who is mostly agnostic, those who belive that absence of evidence equals evidence of absence belong in psychotherapy.

There is zero evidence either way, the best we can say is that we don’t know.

Yeah man something about Russell’s tea pot

We have no evidence for gods, that’s it. There’s no need to provide evidence for absence of god, the burden of proof belongs to the person who makes the claim (that there’s a god/gods).

Unknowns just exists, religion assigns the unknown form. Why is that justified and even more incredible important to those who believe that it be true and to make choices due to the assignment of that form?

Because science tries to understand the unknown using reason, religion throws the reason away and says it was gods.

I get what you’re saying, but saying people who choose to believe something that can’t be proven and hasn’t been disproven need psychotherapy is like saying the same for color preferences. Sometimes there is no right answer and people should be able to choose.

Opinions are opinions. Opinions don’t change the fact that earth is orbiting the sun or that religions are a hoax

First, religions and the existence of God are two different things, just like the existence of the earth and the earth being flat are two different things. Likewise, the existence of religions is no guarantor of God’s existence, nor is there many flaws proof of his non-existence. And unknowns are facts we haven’t discovered or proven yet, much like germ theory, or fanciful ideas which haven’t been debunked, such as the idea that an imbalance of humors was the cause of disease.

The problem with this theory is that we dont have a complete explanation for existence without the existence of a higher power.

Yep, but we have tool for trying to understand it. It’s called scientific method, and it has so far been able to help us understand the mechanics of the universe without resorting to crazy claims such as “yeah must have been super powered aliens”, which is the only offer from religion.

I do get that there’s a chance that it’s all bogus, and that there really is or was a god that created everything in a way we have been able to measure it, but why exactly should I believe it? Which story should I believe? ‘In this world of a million religions everyone prays the same way’, the same human made stories written over centuries trying to explain the world around us. In this context religion seems nothing more than a predecessor to scientific method turned into crowd control tool.

My main point is any philosophy about where humans came from is a matter of faith. I was just pointing out the issue where evolution doesnt sufficiently explain things, but most atheists are aware of this or just handwave away the problem.

I suppose on picking a religion you would need to look at what makes the most logical sense, and is most consistent. Also I would look at what has the best track record with the best outcome.

Yeah that religion is called science. To suggest that gaps exist on evolution so we need to go examine religion is an a joke of an argument. The difference in successful capturing of the reality of the process of life by the theory of evolution to any religion is galactic in scale. Your justification is ridiculous and only exists because you cannot let go of the lies someone taught you as a child in order to control you.

Evolution theory DOES explain where we came from, and the theory is proven billion times over and over. It’s insanity to believe anything else. As Dawkins neatly put it, we have more evidence for evolution theory than we have for Holocaust.

but most atheists are aware of this or just handwave away the problem.

No, ‘atheists’ do not handwave problems found in scientific theories away but study it until it’s no longer a problem. What religion does is just says “it must be gods” and throws any reason to thrash bin

The problem is that DNA and associated parts are too complex to evolve, so there is no explaination how it would have gotten to that point. You can say that religion doesnt do a good job explaining, but the various religions have one even though its kind of cheating. Evolution seems impossible without another unknown factor which makes it another faith based system.

I’m wondering who taught you that. There’s an overwhelming amount of evidence, proof, and reason for evolution. It makes absolute sense, is simple, and easy to comprehend if you’re willing to open your mind and disregard what religion has tried to teach you.

There are lots of good explanations out there, so I won’t bother trying – but basically the most difficult thing to understand about evolution is the incredible amount of time it took to get us to where we are today. Once you see that drawn out visually, it makes a lot more sense.

It’s not something you can believe or not believe, because it’s fact. Instead, you either accept it or don’t accept it. Most people accept the existence of gravity because it’s so easily demonstrated. Once you give evolution a minute of your time, it’s equally easy to accept.

isn’t a ‘higher power’ just kicking the can down the road?

It could be, I guess it would all depend on the theory of what a higher power is. If its God, then thats the endpoint, if its aliens or simulation theory, then it definitely is a kick.

i am not sure what’s the difference there. why is one an endpoint, and the others aren’t?

Literally anything that anyone can ever imagine, is not all equally probable.

As someone who is mostly agnostic, those who belive that absence of evidence equals evidence of absence belong in psychotherapy.

This position is a straw man. Atheists generally do not argue that God categorically does not exist. Instead, we usually say that we don’t believe in God because there is insufficient evidence. Much like the proverbial invisible unicorn in your backyard - since there is no evidence that it exists, there is no reason for it to affect how we go about our daily lives.

When it comes to whether you’re agnostic or atheist, I think it helps to answer the following question on a scale of 0 - 10: How confident are you that God exists? If you say around 5, then you’re agnostic. If you say around 1 or 2, then you’re an atheist.

The one thing that still remains unclear with regards to science and god is the big bang.

The way I have heard it explained is that before the big bang there was nothing.

Which to my mind becomes:

First there was nothing, which exploded

This does not make sense to me, how can nothing explode?

So there are three categories of answer to this question:

A. There was something before the big bang which exploded, though this offeres not explanation of how the thing that exploded came into existance, I have heard theories about how the universe is cyclical and how it will eventually collapse into a new big bang, but that doesn’t answer the queation about the first big bang.

B. God exists and triggered the big bang, that means that the god entity exists outside of our universe.

C. We are just a highly advanced simulator, the big bang was the the program starting our simulation.

There is no rule that says the universe must make sense to human beings. In fact the more we learn about it - subatomic particles, quantum mechanics, the multiverse, etc. the stranger it becomes and the less it appears to operate in ways that are intuitive to our primitive primate brains.

Hell, even space and time might not be fundamental properties, and could themselves be abstractions which emerge from an even deeper underlying reality…

All of which is to say your list should have an extra option:

D. Who The Fuck Knows?

That’s fair.

I was about to add that option, but forgot about it.

I guess what makes me annoyed about it is that we know that the big bang happened, but we don’t know what triggered it or what was before.

The way I have heard it explained is that before the big bang there was nothing.

It’s more like what happened before big bang has no consequences to what happened after. Because this, we have little idea what happened before because there’s no direct evidence.

That is a new way of putting it that I have not heard before, I like it, it doesn’t answer my questions as much as defecting them. It forces me to realize thsybit doesn’t matter.

I believe in that which we can prove, because we have evidence of those things.

Not invisible sky wizards. Lol

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Attitude to Religion and its believers.

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