Worst Inventions

[Free]

Worst invention EVER: monogamy... :D

[the saint]

Humans are God's worst invention

Not if you don't believe in God.

[sceptic]

Religion was invented to supress human nature and control the masses

[david_c]

Religion was invented to supress human nature and control the masses

On the contrary: religion is a part of human nature. And so it does not make sense IMO to say that religion is an invention. You could perhaps argue that any particular example of a religion is an invention.

[Gerben42]

religion is a part of human nature

 

How do you mean that? I am not religious in any way. Does that mean I am not human?

 

There is not much known about the genes that cause religiousness but I once read that they found one. I wonder how that works, though...

[david_c]

religion is a part of human nature

 

How do you mean that? I am not religious in any way. Does that mean I am not human?

There is clearly something in human nature which causes some people to believe such things.

[Badmonster]

religion is a part of human nature

 

How do you mean that? I am not religious in any way. Does that mean I am not human?

There is clearly something in human nature which causes some people to be taken in by religious teachings.

Sentience?

[luke warm]

Sentience?

excellent word... belief in God is not something that has to be taught, imo... religion is not what i mean, the tenets of any particular religion can be taught, and learned... but given a sound (ie, not damaged) mind, it's my belief that a person, if left to his own meditations, has to unlearn a belief in God...

[david_c]

Sentience?

Well, I'm ashamed to say I had to look that one up in the dictionary, but yes, that seems to be the right word for it.

 

[i've now edited my previous post: the original version should not have existed.]

[helene_t]

religion is a part of human nature. And so it does not make sense IMO to say that religion is an invention. You could perhaps argue that any particular example of a religion is an invention.

I tend to agree with that: the fact that all cultures have some kind of religion or at least cultural spirituality (or whatever one should call it) can't be a coincidense. But religion has many faces and not all may be part of human nature:

1 The belief is something stronger and/or moraly superior (relative to humans)

2 Institutionalized religion (that grants spiritual authority and thereby power to certain persons)

3 The belief in whatever one has to believe in order to belong to whatever group one wants to belong to

 

Pesonally, I think I am susceptible to both 1 and 3 and had to de-learn it. 2 is something I have always found revolting, even when I was young and strongly religious (I believed in Marxism, not a joke).

[sceptic]

who believes in Greek gods any more or Norse Gods.. did they disappear. were they there in the first place??

 

They were made up of misguided beliefs, they were Invented by some one (or perhaps Invented was the incorrect word, maybe made up would be better from someones imagination) just in the same way people believed the world was flat.

 

when my time comes if I am wrong I am sure he or she will be all forgiving (as I lead a decent sort of life) and if I am right, it won't matter

 

Religion is not part of human nature, man may have a tendancy to go along with something that is sugested to him, that may be human nature (follow blindly like a sheep but I really don't think we are born with any religious beliefs.

 

We may have questions that religion seems to answer for lack of any substantial proof exsisting. i.e how did we get here or how did we come into exsistence.

 

IMHO someone made up Religion to control the masses, in a time when there were not substantilal explainations for things, i.e raingods, sungods al powerful deities

 

is there something out there unexpalined that controls destiny , is there something out there that is all powerful, did the earth take 6 days to make. I do not think so, I think a lot of very clever people have spent to much time drink strong spirits and taking some weird drugs to get themselves on a higher plane to explain something that just is

 

the answer to this "There is clearly something in human nature which causes some people to believe such things. " is mans curiosity and the need to have an answer

[david_c]

Religion is not part of human nature, man may have a tendancy to go along with something that is sugested to him, that may be human nature (follow blindly like a sheep) but I really don't think we are born with any religious beliefs.

That's not quite the same thing. Note that language is a part of human nature despite the fact that babies are not born talking. I hope this is a helpful analogy.

 

the answer to this "There is clearly something in human nature which causes some people to believe such things. " is mans curiosity and the need to have an answer

There must be more to it than that. I think you are missing this thing called "sentience". Of all the aspects of human nature which go in to making religion possible, this is the most interesting and important: humans (some of them, at least) have this ability to be absolutely convinced that they know the truth, just by relying on some inner feeling. I have a theory that my own atheism is explainable in the same way - I am absolutely convinced that there is no such thing as a god; the fact that millions of people disagree doesn't worry me in the slightest, because I know I'm right, and I don't care that I will never be able to prove it to anyone. I suspect that these feelings are caused by the same aspect of my nature which allows devout believers to proclaim with abolute certainty that god does exist. Unlike Gerben, I would never say, "I am not religious in any way." I am religiously atheistic.

 

I used to think that this made my atheism somewhat less arrogant than other people's, as it means that my atheism is just as "irrational" as a belief in god. (I hate it when people like Richard Dawkins talk about other people's beliefs dismissively; this gives atheism a bad name.) But I then realised that in fact I was being supremely arrogant, as I'm saying that not only do I think I'm right, but that I can also explain why it is that everyone else goes wrong.

[luke warm]

who believes in Greek gods any more or Norse Gods.. did they disappear. were they there in the first place??

from "greek and norse gods never existed in the first place" we can't get "therefore no God exists"

 

when my time comes if I am wrong I am sure he or she will be all forgiving (as I lead a decent sort of life) and if I am right, it won't matter

while forgivness is a major tenet in the, for example, christian religion, one needs to ask in order to receive.. there may come a time when the asking is no longer possible

 

Religion is not part of human nature, man may have a tendancy to go along with something that is sugested to him, that may be human nature (follow blindly like a sheep but I really don't think we are born with any religious beliefs.

my previous post touched on this.. without going into a lot of detail, i honestly believe that a person has to deny his senses (ie, unlearn) to believe there is no creator

 

We may have questions that religion seems to answer for lack of any substantial proof exsisting. i.e how did we get here or how did we come into exsistence.  IMHO someone made up Religion to control the masses, in a time when there were not substantilal explainations for things, i.e raingods, sungods al powerful deities

the big bang theory was a boon to religious philosophers because it gave them, finally, a chance to argue in a logical manner the existence of God... the old cause and effect thingy... btw, concerning your last sentence, are there now 'substantial explanations for things'?

[Sigi_BC84]

I also disagree with those who say religion is an invention. I'd like to add that one should not confuse religion, theism and spirituality. Also, too often the term "religion" is used when actually some church or organization is meant.

 

As far as I can see, spirituality is deeply rooted within humans. You also do not have to believe in God (or in anything, for that matter) in order to be genuinely spiritual. Atheism and spirituality are not opposed to each other.

 

Furthermore, intelligence and reason does not collide with spirituality in any way (you can see them as orthogonal if you will).

 

Some of the posters here seem to have brushed religion/spirituality aside at some point because it might have interfered with their idea of rationality or being mature. I don't think this is necessary.

 

Somebody I know (who is a total nerd but quite smart) once said that "an intelligent person cannot be religious". This is, in fact, complete nonsense.

 

--Sigi

 

(For what its worth, I don't believe in God but neither in Materialism.)

[Sigi_BC84]

Unlike Gerben, I would never say, "I am not religious in any way." I am religiously atheistic.

This is what I meant by "spiritual". Believing in god (or a plurality of gods, that does not matter here) means that you assume the existence of a supernatural being, a person, a separate entity. Being authentically religious does not require such a belief.

 

--Sigi

[Gerben42]

Somebody I know (who is a total nerd but quite smart) once said that "an intelligent person cannot be religious". This is, in fact, complete nonsense.

 

He probably meant to say something more personal like "I can't understand how these supposedly intelligent people can believe in something so vague like God". As usual admitting you cannot understand something is hard.

 

For me it's different. I can understand why people would be religious but would never have religious beliefs myself. It just doesn't work for me. I do not "believe". I think the Big Bang theory is the best theory to describe the early universe because it fits the observations, whereas "creation by some deity" doesn't make any sense to me. But I don't believe in it.

[Sigi_BC84]

who believes in Greek gods any more or Norse Gods.. did they disappear. were they there in the first place??

from "greek and norse gods never existed in the first place" we can't get "therefore no God exists"

Another two of my cents on this one.

 

For the Greeks, Vikings, Mayans etc., their gods did exist. What do we know, maybe they really existed and died when people stopped worshipping them (yeah, I know I start to sound like a nutcase now). The Tibetans, arguably the spiritually most advanced culture on Earth, take the existence of gods for granted. Only, for them they are not essentially different from humans or any sentient being, just living on a different plane, and even mortal.

 

Now, being raised and educated in a materialistic culture adhering to the scientific method, of course we have to rebut such ideas. The "spiritual method" is incompatible with the scientific method (as of yet).

 

For me, modern physics has long since turned into an esoteric discipline. Nuclear physics tells you that everything is composed to 99,999% of nothing. Quantum physics proposes theories that are not more against all intuition than believing in God against the intuition of atheists. I don't see physicists proclaiming that the smallest particle has been found and that search is over -- while being totally incomprehensible to almost anyone they still come up with more and more theories which get more bizarre every day.

 

I don't see why anybody should be ashamed for believing in supernatural beings in such a world.

 

I'm hoping you get my point.

 

--Sigi

[Sigi_BC84]

I think the Big Bang theory is the best theory to describe the early universe because it fits the observations, whereas "creation by some deity" doesn't make any sense to me. But I don't believe in it.

Who (or what) created the Big Bang, then? This is a question with which one could be concerned as well, and it's not incompatible with trying to explain everything since the Big Bang.

 

I like the approach that Buddhism takes in this regard, saying that there is no beginning, only an endless chain of cause and effect stretching into eternity in both directions. This is very logical, matches our observations and does not need a supernatural being.

 

--Sigi

[Gerben42]

For the Greeks, Vikings, Mayans etc., their gods did exist. What do we know, maybe they really existed and died when people stopped worshipping them (yeah, I know I start to sound like a nutcase now)

 

Read "Small Gods" by Terry Pratchett. Gods in the Disc World only have power if people believe in them.

 

For me, modern physics has long since turned into an esoteric discipline. Nuclear physics tells you that everything is composed to 99,999% of nothing. Quantum physics proposes theories that are not more against all intuition than believing in God against the intuition of atheists.

 

Physics is a way to describe the universe around us. This is useful because when we get an accurate description we can use this knowledge to our advantage. If you knock your bidding box from the table, physics will tell you how long it will take to fall on the floor and with what force the bidding cards are thrown out of the box when it hits.

 

Even though some of these theories may seem esoteric they are the best description humanity can come up with to base future predicitions on. The idea of a refrigerator cannot mature without thermodynamics, the elevator not without classical mechanics and the television not without quantum mechanics.

 

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly

what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly

disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and

inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has

already happened.

-- Douglas Adams

[Gerben42]

Who (or what) created the Big Bang, then? This is a question with which one could be concerned as well, and it's not incompatible with trying to explain everything since the Big Bang.

 

One could be concerned with this or be honest with oneself and realize that there is no way to find out and as such irrational to make any assumptions about this. The only thing that one can say is that if all this never happened, there would be no one asking the question.

[sceptic]

concerning your last sentence, are there now 'substantial explanations for things'?

 

we have moved on a bit in the last 4-6,000 years and one or two things have been proven

 

i.e it does not thunder because Someone up there is angry and if you don't eat your vegatables you will not turn into a frog, and Imaculate conceptions can't happen

[Gerben42]

Some more things we figured out:

 

Volcanic eruptions do not happen because Someone is mad at the people of some nearby nation.

 

Humans cannot walk on water even though they have a lower density.

 

Owning a black cat and a broom does not make you a witch.

 

You cannot make 3NT on a cross ruff.

[Sigi_BC84]

and Imaculate conceptions can't happen

We've certainly found a way to do that by now (well, it depends on your definition of "immaculate" I admit)... :-)

 

--Sigi

[luke warm]

Who (or what) created the Big Bang, then? This is a question with which one could be concerned as well, and it's not incompatible with trying to explain everything since the Big Bang.

 

One could be concerned with this or be honest with oneself and realize that there is no way to find out and as such irrational to make any assumptions about this.

do you mean that the one who believes in a creator is equally irrational with the one who doesn't? both make assumptions

 

i think it's perfectly rational to ask questions based on observations, experiences, etc... and if science (apart from the string theory, which came into being in part as a way to counter christian philosopher's glee with big bang) can really only say, "there was an event that began approximately at this time, and this singularity is responsible for all we see" then yes, there is a huge logical hole there

 

The only thing that one can say is that if all this never happened, there would be no one asking the question.

but it did and we are, and those who do (on both sides) are, or usually are, quite rational

 

I like the approach that Buddhism takes in this regard, saying that there is no beginning, only an endless chain of cause and effect stretching into eternity in both directions. This is very logical, matches our observations and does not need a supernatural being.

actually this doesn't stand up to logic, if one grants the impossibility of an effect without a cause... because no matter how you slice it, there has to be a first cause

 

added by edit: the reason there has to be a first cause has to do with the nature of infinity and the impossibility of in infinite universe (logical impossibility, that is)... if space/time is infinite, we could never logically prove we are where we are when we are

[luke warm]

concerning your last sentence, are there now 'substantial explanations for things'?

 

i.e it does not thunder because Someone up there is angry and if you don't eat your vegatables you will not turn into a frog, and Imaculate conceptions can't happen

and you know these things how? i can't prove it, but i do think that the entire sum of human knowledge hasn't scratched the surface of what acutally is, much less of what is possible