Einstein Letter on God

[mike777]

AGain if you think there is no such thing as a living involved God that pretty much ends this discussion. :P

 

Let's keep in mind that in the founding story of three major faiths God told Abraham to go and kill his son with his own knife. And Abraham followed what God told him to do. This is the founding story. That there is something more important than your life and your son's life.

 

Keep in mind that this in fact is what humanism advocates and preaches. Humans decide what living genes live or die. Humans decide the moral code, not something else.

 

 

However it would be wrong very wrong to say that the three main faiths that grew out of Abraham think that GOD has decreed you cannot kill living genes. It is pretty clear that GOD killed not only living genes, animals, etc but advocated it.

There is no such moral code that advocated you do not kill.

 

Now as for killing humans, keep in mind even God killed off 99.9% of the human race and all the baby puppies. There is at least the suggestion he will Kill more at the end of time.

 

And please as in other threads I said I am against the death penalty and murder so please no posts with that in them, ty. :)

[barmar]

Please read on Wikipedia about the "production" of the bible. The textes are surely written by man. And if you read the New Testament, you will see that different writers sometimes describe the same story in a different way. (they had three writers to describe the live of Jesus, sometimes they saw things from a different angle)

Quite true. This is what many atheists use as evidence AGAINST religion. How can you follow the Bible if the different gospels don't even agree on many things? And it's not just Christianity that has this problem, there are inconsistencies in the Koran as well.

 

But I don't believe that fundamentalists share your liberal view of the Bible.

Do you really need an organized religion to tell you that it's wrong to lie, steal, and kill?  Everything in the 10 Commandments is either common ethics (the last 5-6) or religious claptrap (the first 4-5).

 

I have read this before (around page 3 or so) I don't get it, why anybody says that the commitments 1-5 are "religious claptrap". Maybe you have a different counting ( I know that the 10 commitments are different in different religions). But Nr. 3 (Have a nice weekend) Nr 4: Be a nice kid and Nr 5 (don't kill) are "normal" ethics.

As has also been mentioned earlier, the commandment numbers vary in different versions of the Bible, and I don't really know the order. The religious ones I refer to are "make no graven image", "don't take the Lord's name in vain", "have no God before me", "keep the sabbath holy" (if you really interpret that as "have a nice day", you don't take your religion very seriously, so why are you debating so hard?).

 

Basically, there are some commandments that are about actions among people, and others that are about actions between people and God. The latter are "religious claptrap", the former are ethics that all societies consider normal, and no one requires a holy book to tell them to follow those rules.

 

I'm not saying that there aren't any good lessons to be learned from the Bible, like "turn the other cheek" or "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." But what is it about this that requires you to believe in a supernatural being that you have to pray to, and a Hell that you'll be damned to if you don't?

 

You've mentioned that people weren't as enlightened when Christianity was being organized and the Bible was written. People in *those* societies may have needed all this structure, because they couldn't understand the world without it. But we've come a long way since then. Science has filled in all the large gaps in our understanding of nature, there's no need to resort to supernatural causes to explain how the Earth, Sun, animals, and man came to be.

[Winstonm]

I don't know, but a religion who claims to be the only way into heaven sounds wrong for me.

 

I am with you on this point - however, the predominant Calvinist viewpoint is just the opposite. I would think Catholicism would think in a similar fashion, but am ignorant of their beliefs.

 

This is the great unstated that faithful Christians no longer address out loud - instead, they say things like "all you have to do is believe" or "all you have to do is accept the gift". What they no longer talk about is what happens if you don't believe or do not accept the gift.

 

Hellfire. Damnation. Eternal Torment.

 

But don't worry about that, kid....all ya gotta do is take this pill and none of that will happen....

 

The simple fact is that in these belief systems those who do not conform are condemned. Salvation is a private club and you better know and use the secret knock to get in.

 

Once you have a private club, you have a control mechanism - conform or burn.

And that leads to a sense of prestige and superiority over the non-club members.

 

The basic psychological driver for this type of religious belief is ego gratification - the need to feel superior, which the knowledge of and use of the secret knock grants.

 

Religion is not morality - religion is psychology.

[luke warm]

i have to go to work but let me ask this first.. i'll try to find time to answer you more specifically.. in your opinion, does the content of a true belief enter the causal chain leading to behavior, or does it not?

 

I have no opinion on this as I have never considered it - but now I will try.

 

It would make sense to me that the content of a true belief could enter in a causal chain leading to behavior.

 

Now, let me re-ask my question - why is it that someone like me, with no formal training at all, can understand the problems with Plantinga's arguments, while someone like yourself, presenting yourself as studied in logic, seem to have difficulty grasping the flaws as presented in the critique?

i don't know how far i'll get in addressing some of the posts over the last few days, but i'll try... this is the first (that i saw), so i'll start here... ok winston, that's why i asked what i did (and thanks for your answer)... if you recall, richard's main criticism (if i understood him) was based on that found in the link he posted - the R value in plantinga's argument..

 

his argument consists of 3 main terms, N (naturalism), E (evolution), and R... plantinga defined R (paraphrasing) as the reliability of our cognitive faculties

 

he states that beliefs can only affect you and me (in an evolutionary sense) to the extent they affect our behavior... now your answer above seems to indicate that a true belief does affect our behavior, but plantina then asks "what about untrue beliefs?"... what he's asking in effect is, if beliefs (true or untrue) can affect our behavior, can no beliefs at all do so? and if beliefs do affect behavior in a naturalist worldview, are they neurally hard-wired (ie., a product of evolution)? what percentage of our beliefs would have to be true, given your thought above, for man to have adapted enough to survive?

 

in spite of the link provided by richard, most philosophers who object to plantina's argument do so on the grounds that all it proves is that neither theism nor naturalism would matter, both are equally apt to lead to error... this, to me, is a far more valid criticism (but that's just me)... that's because it lowers the threshold for true beliefs to lead to adaptive behavior and, it is said, does away with one of plantinga's major strengths - the idea of 'defeaters' for the reliability of our faculties

 

now there's a whole other set of objections from those who hold an opposite view to yours - that beliefs per se are a casual chain towards behavior... plantinga has answered all criticisms, and much better than i could ever hope to... if it really interests you, read some of those and then just believe what you want :P

my grandson (who we are raising) has baseball games and/or practice (practice tonight, i leave in 10 minutes), i work and do other things... i'll try to work on getting my priorities straight

I did not mean to imply that you owed a response. You have obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this topic and a lot of time posting in this thread. And, I was looking forward to reading your response to my post. I felt kind of silly checking this thread so quickly upon my return. I meant the post merely as an admission of that interest, not as a demand upon anyone's time.

i didn't mean to imply that i took it as a demand, you have good questions, thoughtfully stated with no personal attacks (which is the way it should be, imo)

Is the complaint that Richard (and others) have a predisposition not to believe in the super-natural?  Or, that we have a predisposition not to believe specifically in the Christian super-natural?

not so much a compliant (although of the choices you give i would say christianity gets the most criticism - and i understand why) but simply a statement seeking agreement that we all have presuppositions

I do not doubt that you believe in the tenants of Christianity.  But, I do not believe there is evidence to support your beliefs; I deny the Christian God.  I don't deny your beliefs, I just think you are wrong!

i know you do, i wish you didn't but believe me when i say i know why you do... but we won't get into that :)

I have not heard any convincing argument for the existence of God, either.  I believe the onus of proof is on those who believe in the existence of God rather than on those who do not believe.

most arguments for God's existence (the christian God) that i use are, as richard asked and i affirmed earlier, based on the fact that the explanations posed by other worldviews for the existence of things lead to irrationality... iow, the proof of the christian God boils down to the impossibility of the contrary... now i do know the arguments against that view, i've debated people who use all sorts of arguments... when debates are refereed by those qualified to do so, the results might not be what you suspect (this is apart from whether or not the "audience" is persuaded of the rightness of either position, by the way)

 

the late greg bahnsen had many very famous debates, you can probably find a few either in print or on youtube, you be the judge... i could never hope to hold my own against some of those against whom he debated... as for your last sentence in the above quote, let me just say that it isn't only the side taking the affirmative that must prove a thing... for example, if you and i were debating "does a belief in the existence of abstract entities presuppose the christian God?" you would be expected to hold up your end of the struggle (and no, i'm not offering nor challenging - i doubt i'd have enough time to do a debate justice)

You are still avoiding the question regarding the virgin birth.

i'm sorry, i couldn't find the question... if you asked whether or not i believe it, the answer is yes... if you asked whether or not i can prove it, the answer is no... if you're asking whether or not i take it on faith, the answer is yes

 

one more thing to note, i don't presume to speak for all christians or to hold beliefs in common with all (or even a majority) of them... i believe what i believe, they believe what they believe, and that's pretty much where it stands... it might not seem so, but i do respect your views and even more your right to them... if anything i've written implies otherwise, point it out and i'll retract it

[TimG]

i'm sorry, i couldn't find the question... if you asked whether or not i believe it, the answer is yes... if you asked whether or not i can prove it, the answer is no... if you're asking whether or not i take it on faith, the answer is yes

My questions were:

what he, and i suppose you and ken, are lending credence to is the "... virtually NO..." part of his sentence... there is every bit as much, if not more than, historical evidence regarding the new testament as there is regarding other things we accept as true about the ancient world... for him to say what he did is to admit to arbitrarily accepting some more than others, with nothing but presupposition as the reason... now i know we all have those presuppositions, but the intellectually honest amongst us at least acknowledge that

 

Where is the non-Bible historical evidence that Jesus was born to a virgin mother or walked the earth after his death?

 

What other ancient-world, super-natural events do we accept as true?

I don't think that most atheists are biased against Christianity (any more than other religions), it's just that in our society the theist position is most often taken up by the Christian. I don't think there is any intellectual dishonesty associated with lumping the virgin birth in with stories of Odin or Zeus or any number of other stories that Christians would call myths. It's just that because the theist position is most often taken up by a Christian, Christianity comes under fire more often than other religions. At least in our society, perhaps there are those in Islamic or Hindu societies who are having similar discussion and think their religion is taking the brunt of the criticism. (Yes, I realize this forum has no religious boundaries, but I think the generalization is appropriate.)

[Codo]

"keep the sabbath holy" (if you really interpret that as "have a nice day", you don't take your religion very seriously, so why are you debating so hard?).

.. you can have a very long discussion why it is mandatory for a community to have at least one day in a week where the majority has not to work. If you dislike my way of saying this, be my guest. If "keep the sabbath holy" does not make a nice day for you, okay, bad luck for you.

 

I'm not saying that there aren't any good lessons to be learned from the Bible, like "turn the other cheek" or "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."  But what is it about this that requires you to believe in a supernatural being that you have to pray to, and a Hell that you'll be damned to if you don't?

 

Okay so we all agree that it is right to behave in this way and you believe that we shall do so because it is right, but there is no later justice about what you did. I do believe that it is right and there will be a "court" to judge about our living. Do any of us have any facts that on believe is right or wrong? No, so we can still believe.

 

I do believe that sometimes prayers help me. You don't. This is fine, too.

 

Science has filled in all the large gaps in our understanding of nature, there's no need to resort to supernatural causes to explain how the Earth, Sun, animals, and man came to be.

 

Do you know how many modern times we had already? Do you know how many cultures believed that they nearly know everything? I find it ridicoulus to believe that "science has filled all the large gaps in our understanding". The knowledge of the world doubles all 10 years or so. This would be impossible if science had been so far as you think it is.

And we really don't know a lot about the stars and the beginning of live. We have very good theories, but they are still theories. We have quite a good understanding why people behave like they do, but they/we are still a miracle. We have cured millions of illnesses but there are millions left.

Sorry, but we really know nothing and I really believe that knowledge of the community in 3008 will be so superior to our knowledge, that they will look at us as a kind of barbarians.

[Gerben42]

.. you can have a very long discussion why it is mandatory for a community to have at least one day in a week where the majority has not to work. If you dislike my way of saying this, be my guest. If "keep the sabbath holy" does not make a nice day for you, okay, bad luck for you.

 

Let me illustrate that. It is a good idea that we don't work 7 days a week, that would be horrible. What tilts me is that I cannot do the laundry on Sunday (no power in the laundry attic on a Sunday!). I will be approached by strangers or get dirty looks when I wash my car on a Sunday as well.

 

It's often the only day of the week where I can do such things. Because I work during the week and often play Bridge during the weekend, my most productive days catching up with cleaning, laundry etc. are Sundays and holidays. I like it that way. All I want is for the locals to accept this...

[barmar]

.. you can have a very long discussion why it is mandatory for a community to have at least one day in a week where the majority has not to work. If you dislike my way of saying this, be my guest. If "keep the sabbath holy" does not make a nice day for you, okay, bad luck for you.

 

Let me illustrate that. It is a good idea that we don't work 7 days a week, that would be horrible. What tilts me is that I cannot do the laundry on Sunday (no power in the laundry attic on a Sunday!). I will be approached by strangers or get dirty looks when I wash my car on a Sunday as well.

 

It's often the only day of the week where I can do such things. Because I work during the week and often play Bridge during the weekend, my most productive days catching up with cleaning, laundry etc. are Sundays and holidays. I like it that way. All I want is for the locals to accept this...

Right. There's a big difference between having a day off from work, and keeping that day "holy". Most people in the US get two days off from work, usually Saturday and Sunday, but only one of them is holy (Saturday for Jews, Sunday for Christians -- sorry Muslims). The weekend is a secular outgrowth of the religious sabbath.

[barmar]

Science has filled in all the large gaps in our understanding of nature, there's no need to resort to supernatural causes to explain how the Earth, Sun, animals, and man came to be.

 

Do you know how many modern times we had already? Do you know how many cultures believed that they nearly know everything? I find it ridicoulus to believe that "science has filled all the large gaps in our understanding". The knowledge of the world doubles all 10 years or so. This would be impossible if science had been so far as you think it is.

And we really don't know a lot about the stars and the beginning of live. We have very good theories, but they are still theories. We have quite a good understanding why people behave like they do, but they/we are still a miracle. We have cured millions of illnesses but there are millions left.

Sorry, but we really know nothing and I really believe that knowledge of the community in 3008 will be so superior to our knowledge, that they will look at us as a kind of barbarians.

I've never said that we have all the answers, but we keep filling in the gaps with science. Religion does it by simply making stuff up and telling everyone they should believe it. What's wrong with just saying "we don't know yet?" Why do you have to pretend that you have answers?

 

But I did mean it when I said that science has filled in the LARGE gaps. There are still some details missing, and scientists have plenty of work to do, but for the most part we know how the universe works. It's true, however, that some discoveries in the past decade or so have raised some big questions in cosmology (dark matter, dark energy). I have confidence that scientists will figure out most of the answers, like they always have in the past, so there's no need to presume a supernatural explanation.

 

When science does learn something new, it practically never matches the Biblical explanation. No miraculous Creation by a deity in 6 days, about 6,000 years ag, a Big Bang due to quantum mechanical forces about 14 billion years ago. Plants and animals were not created all at once and unchanging, they evolved from simple forms over millions of years due to natural selection. The earth travels around the sun, not the other way around. The list goes on and on.

 

How can you have any confidence in a religion that has been shown to make incorrect claims about such important things?

[mycroft]

How can I have any confidence in a religion that believed that space is filled with an unknowable, unmeasurable Æther that light propagated in? Or that there was no porous thick platinum oxide that can be generated by long-term heavy static electrochemical pressure or less long-term cyclical pressure? Or that nuclear power couldn't exist, because the atom was indivisble and unchanging?

 

It sure looks like every time science learns something new, it frequently doesn't match the Scientific explanation - those three examples are less than 100 years old.

 

OTOH, I'm not a Bible literalist; Genesis 1 is a useful myth that can still teach us things that science doesn't seem to be able to (like, dominion over the plants and animals also means responsibilty for same plants and animals), and frankly is more "true", for values of truth including "higher probability of survival in 2000BCE Sinai" than modern science. That means, to me, that "you don't get to pick and choose what is to be taken literally" (with possibly the Red Letters, in particular, the Great Commandment, as an exception) applies to both the literalists and the Bible-bashers.

 

Although the ones that really burn my butt are the ones who declaim "it is True because Science Says So" - see Para. 1 for my response to that - that is Science as a Religion, and those people have forgotten what Science is (hint: look up falsifiable as it applies to the Scientific Method. Then prove the logical truth of ~(A ^ B) ). Oh, and the ID nutters - it is a plausible theory, it even May Be True (1); but because it is unfalsifiable (funny, that same word again. Maybe it's important?), it Is Not Science.

 

Michael.

 

(1) I am reminded, however, of Damon Runyon's rule: "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet."

(2) Is there a way to disable *#@$ing annoying stupid pictures where I really want text by default?

[mikeh]

It sure looks like every time science learns something new, it frequently doesn't match the Scientific explanation - those three examples are less than 100 years old.

 

Compare this with the bible... I acknowledge that different believers have expanded the range of interpretations of the literature, but where are the new gospels, the new passages, the supplements reflecting new wisdom?

 

Those who rant about those who elevate science to a religion are, imo, confusing 'scientific knowledge' with 'scientific method'. The former represents the current understanding of matters arising from the application, to date, of the latter.

 

There are always going to be humans who cling to the status quo, who cling to paradigms long after they have been shifted. But that is a fault of the human, not of the method. Unlike religion, the scientific method carries within itself the need to constantly re-examine current understanding, and to accept that as our knowledge expands, our theories must be adjusted accordingly. It is impossible to truly apply the scientific method and, at the same time, cling to beliefs that have been shown to be false.

 

OTOH, I'm not a Bible literalist; Genesis 1 is a useful myth that can still teach us things that science doesn't seem to be able to (like, dominion over the plants and animals also means responsibilty for same plants and animals), and frankly is more "true", for values of truth including "higher probability of survival in 2000BCE Sinai" than modern science.

 

This is nonsense: sorry, Michael, I usually agree with much of what you post, but this is silly.

 

The bible commands us to go forth and multiply. The RC church prohibits most forms of birth control. The bible enjoins us to exercise mastery over all other animals.

 

We have done this to the point where humans have exterminated thousands of species, and more are disappearing every year. We can date our success as exterminators back at least 12,000 years.

 

We are now, it seems, changing the climate of the planet, to the point that we are threatening even more species. We may be about to induce a mass reduction in the human population over the next 100-150 years as desertification spreads, and we kill off most of the fish in the oceans.. if not through over-fishing, then by destruction of the temperature- and salinity- dependent plankton populations.

 

Yes, I know that it can be argued that our 'success' has been due to science.

 

Well, tell that to the mega-fauna of the Americas in 12,000 BC when humans first spread across the continents.

 

More importantly, the reason technology was used to almost exterminate the bison and to kill all the passenger pigeons, amongst other matters, was the attitude of society.

 

Scientists are people: they live and breathe the cultural values of their society. Through virtually all of history, those values have been based on religious teachings.

 

It was not the scientific method that has brought the earth to its current state, it was the use to which technology was put.. and that use was driven by the values of the society at large.

 

All used to be taught, and many still believe, that there is some fundamental difference between humans and 'animals'. The last pope criticized Italians for spending money on their pet dogs, which, he pointed out did not have souls.

 

I suspect that many pet owners would reject the idea that their dog has no soul while they do. But the point is that this type of attitude, based on the belief that we are created in god's image (and the other animals are not) allows people to ignore the welfare of other players in the ecology (a term of science, not religion, btw).

 

The atheist realizes that we are part of the fabric of life on this planet, and that while evolution has provided us with certain advantages over other animals, we are nevertheless fundamentally the same type of life. We can see that we cannot depend on some supernatural divine being to intercede to bail us out of any mess we may create. We can implement birth control without fearing going to hell. We can recognize that hurricanes will become more powerful and more frequent as the planet warms, without being tempted to blame the victims for having incurred god's wrath.

 

As for survival skills, you have to be kidding! Give Moses a set of Encylopedia Brittanicas from the mid 1950's and the ability to read and understand them, and make sure that sufficient of his tribespeople share those abilities and are prepared to use the knowledge, and it would have been a Jewish Empire, not a Roman empire at the time of Jesus' birth!

 

Metallurgy would have led to more powerful weapons. Medicine would have reduced infant mortality and increased adult life expectancy. Agriculture would have led to improved crop yields, and improved animal husbandry. And so on.

 

And the information of value from the encylopedias would have been generated by the scientific method: the encylopedia wouldn't have given them a single new and powerful prayer.

[Codo]

Sorry Mike,

 

I often agree with you, but here some false statements.

 

You cannot give the responsibility for the crimes against nature to the religions.

If you want the mastery about the animals you simply should not kill them. You cannot be the master of a dead bison f.e. So this crimes had been done with the help of the science and contrary to what the bible told us in the quote you gave.

 

If the pope says that there is too much money, time and effort spend on our pets while their are still people starving in a rich country like Italy, then he has a point. It is our responsibility what we do with our goods. We all (Me surely included) like to spend most of our money for ourselves, accepting that it would be helpful to give more to the poor on this planet. we "all" handle it this way. But that does not make this way the right way.

And if someone tells us that it is wrong to give so much to the loved pets and so few to the starving, he surely has a point.

 

I needed a long time to understand the concept against birth control from the catholics. I still don`t share their view, but it is shortsided to condem it.

 

As a starter: Who can define the beginning of life? Can you? I cannot. So when is it okay to kill some cells and when does it start to be murder? Sorry, I don`t want to be the judge about this point.

[hrothgar]

the late greg bahnsen had many very famous debates, you can probably find a few either in print or on youtube, you be the judge...

The late Greg Bahnsen was a well known Christian Reconstructionist

 

(You know, the folks who are in favor of imposing the death penalty for blasphemy...)

 

I'd be careful hitching my wagon to that set of horses...

[luke warm]

i've never heard or read any of his works where he advocated anything like that... in any case, i was speaking of his debate ability... i believe some of what he believed (for example, postmillennialism), and i don't think some of what he believed is scriptural (for example, a focus on a mixture of works, to whatever degree, and faith for salvation)