Einstein Letter on God

[helene_t]

In many cases you can plainly see that people act in ways that would be out of the question if they genuinely believed what they profess.

I used to wonder if people who profess to believe in astrology, but never base any important decision on the planetary configurations, genuinely believe.

 

Then I read some books about contemporary research in human decision making and consciousness (Pinker, Shermer, Dennett, Freedman & Fraser) and now I am not sure if it is at all clear what "genuine belief" means, and I think it could even be argued that inconsistency in behavior indicates genuine belief, rather than faked belief. This may sound paradoxically and I should add the disclaimer that it is just my own home-baked idea so it's probably wrong, but here it goes:

 

One person I know is a chain smoker. As a reasonably rational person he is aware that smoking is bad for his health. If you ask him why he never even tried quiting smoking he will just say "well yes, I recognize that I should, but ......". And that's it. You won't get more reasoning than that out of him.

 

Another person I know of used to be a heavy smoker. Being a knowledgeable person she might be expected to acknowledge that it was bad for her health, but she kept saying that the link between smoking and cancer has not been established and besides it has been established that smoking reduces the risk of Parkinson's disease.

 

My interpretation is this: the first person doesn't need consistency between his behavior and his belief so he is able to stay faithful to his genuine belief (that smoking is bad). The second person wouldn't be able to cope with the inconsistency and therefore makes up a fake belief. That her belief was fake was confirmed when she quit smoking after having been diagnosed with cancer.

 

While conventional wisdom maintains that consistency between belief and behavior is caused by an optimization algorithm that choses the optimal behavior given some belief, there is amble evidence in support of the opposite hypothesis: we often chose our behavior first, and then we construct belief systems that justify them. Did GW attack Iraq because he thought Iraq had WMDs? Possibly. But more likely, he believed in the WMDs in order to justify the war. Whether his belief in the WMDs was "genuine" I don't know, but I would give it a higher score on the genuineity scale if it had been incosistent rather than consistent with his decision.

[luke warm]

read plantinga's proof re: naturalism vs. evolution

I've always thought Plantinga's "proof" regarding naturalism and evolution to be laughable. There is a hole in his argument big enough to drive a truck through.

for you to be correct tell me what warrant you can give for truth and evolution to be necessary for survival... he is simply saying, and his proof is compelling, that evolution is an epistemic defeater for naturalism... are you really telling us you have read him enough to understand what he means by defeaters, how he arrived at the term, and that you can formulate an epistemology that can compete with him, or are you saying what i said above, that we all take authorities we find palatable and run with them?

 

also, alvin plantinga's accomplishments speak for themselves, and i find it extremely arrogant that you, with your accomplishments, can call his views "laughable"... for those who care, he is currently the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame... the following is simply meant to show that you have no (pardon the use of this word) warrant for your use of "laughable"

 

* Calvin College, A.B., 1954

* University of Michigan, M.A. , 1955

* Yale University, Ph.D., 1958

 

* Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 1968-69

* Guggenheim Fellow, June 1 - December 31, 1971, April 4 - August 31, 1972

* Fellow, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 1975 -

* Fellow, Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship, 1979-1980

* Visiting Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford 1975-76

* National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, 1975-76, 1987, 1995-6

* Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies, 1980-81

 

* Vice-President, American Philosophical Association, Central Division, 1980-81

* President, American Philosophical Association, Central Division, 1981-82

* President, Society of Christian Philosophers, l983-86

 

Books

1. Faith and Philosophy, (ed) Eerdmans, 1964

2. The Ontological Argument, (ed) Doubleday, 1965

3. God and Other Minds, Cornell University Press, 1967

4. The Nature of Necessity, Oxford University Press, 1974

5. God, Freedom and Evil, Harper Torchbook, 1974

6. Does God Have a Nature? Marquette University Press, 1980

7. Faith and Rationality (ed. with Nicholas Wolterstorff), University of Notre Dame Press, 1983

8. The Twin Pillars of Christian Scholarship; the Henry Stob Lectures (Grand Rapids, MI: Calvin College: l989) (pamphlet)

9. Warrant: the Current Debate (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)

10. Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)

11. Essays in Ontology (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)

12. The Analytic Theist: A Collection of Alvin Plantinga's Work in Philosophy of Religion, ed. James Sennett (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

13. Warranted Christian Belief in process

 

Books about him

1. Alvin Plantinga, ed. James Tomberlin and Peter van Inwagen (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985)

2. Thomistic Papers IV, ed. Leonard Kennedy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988)

3. Parsons, Keith, God and the Burden of Proof (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989)

4. Hoitenga, Dewey, From Plato to Plantinga: an Introduction to Reformed Epistemology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991)

5. Sennett, James, Modality, Probability, and Rationality: A Critical Examination of Alvin Plantinga's Philosophy (New York: P. Lang, 1992)

6. McLeod, Mark S., Rationality and Thesitic Belief: an Essay on Reformed Epistemology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993)

7. Rational Faith, ed. Linda Zagzebski (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993)

8. Claramunt, Enrique R. Moros, Modalidad y esencia: La metaphysica de Alvin Plantinga (Pamplona: University of Navarre Press, 1996)

9. Kvanvig, Jonathan (ed), Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Plantinga's Theory of Knowledge (Savage, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996)

10. Ferrer, Francisco S. Conesa, Dios Y el Mal; La Defensa del Teísmo Frente al problema del mal según Alvin Plantinga, (Pamplona: University of Navarre Press, forthcoming)

[Al_U_Card]

i know without a doubt that there are questions which humans are incapable of answering

 

I agree, (should you not add, at the moment on the end of your statement?)

 

here are my four questions

 

1/. Is there a God?

 

2/. Can some one prove the existance of God? (please dont ask can I prove he does not exist as I can't prove fairies live at the bottom of my garden, either)

 

3/. Can some one tell me what happened to Odin, Thor, Zeus, Ra (the list may be almost limitless)?

 

4/. Do Gods stop existing if no one believes in them any more?

 

can some one write just one post answering just one of these questions

1) Yes, and we are it.

 

2) Our constant evolution towards the perfection that our innate divinity provides.

 

3) They were left behind, as our ever-perfecting understanding of our own godliness continues.

 

4) Belief is only a criterion for creativity. Once created and used up, only memories remain so they (the god images of self that we created as we develop)continue to exist but only as a memory.

[PassedOut]

In many cases you can plainly see that people act in ways that would be out of the question if they genuinely believed what they profess.

I used to wonder if people who profess to believe in astrology, but never base any important decision on the planetary configurations, genuinely believe.

 

Then I read some books about contemporary research in human decision making and consciousness (Pinker, Shermer, Dennett, Freedman & Fraser) and now I am not sure if it is at all clear what "genuine belief" means, and I think it could even be argued that inconsistency in behavior indicates genuine belief, rather than faked belief.

Thanks for the response. What I could "plainly see" was not true at all. (That happens to me at the bridge table too.)

 

Thinking about your post, I recalled a book I read many years ago titled When Prophecy Fails. For the true believers, the failure of the central prophecy of their faith actually strengthened belief.

[PassedOut]

...or are you saying what i said above, that we all take authorities we find palatable and run with them?

 

also, alvin plantinga's accomplishments speak for themselves, and i find it extremely arrogant that you, with your accomplishments, can call his views "laughable"... for those who care, he is currently the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame... the following is simply meant to show that you have no (pardon the use of this word) warrant for your use of "laughable"

I don't think anyone contends that Plantinga is lazy, just that he is wrong.

 

As to your belief "that we all take authorities we find palatable and run with them," I say that some people do and some people don't. That's one reason these discussions can go awry.

 

All religions and political movements have their learned scholars. The people heavily invested in reading and understanding what those scholars have to say are naturally reluctant to admit that they have wasted much time in that pursuit. Never mind that -- had they spent that time studying some other scholars -- they would have believed, equally strongly, the opposite.

 

I recall one time a school counselor told me that I had not taught my children respect for authority. I told her she was perceptive.

[skjaeran]

 

1/. Is there a God?

 

2/. Can some one prove the existance of God? (please dont ask can I prove he does not exist as I can't prove fairies live at the bottom of my garden, either)

 

3/. Can some one tell me what happened to Odin, Thor, Zeus, Ra (the list may be almost limitless)?

 

4/. Do Gods stop existing if no one believes in them any more?

 

can some one write just one post answering just one of these questions

1. No, but I can't prove it.

2. No.

3. They became outdated - other faiths took over.

4. Irrelevant question, see 1. above. :P

[luke warm]

Jimmy I may be misunderstanding your theme but it seems you are asking or stating the theory that:

 

There is  a way things are that is independent of human opinion, and that we are capable of arriving at belief about how things are that is ojectively reasonable, binding on anyone capable of appreciating the revelent evidence regardless of their social or cultural perspective.

 

As opposed to a competing theory that:

 

It is never possible to explain why we believe what we believe soley on the basis of our exposure to the relevant evidence: our contingent needs and interests must also be involved.

 

Or to rephrase, our exposure to the evidence is either sufficient to explain why we believe what we believe or that our contingent social interests must ALWAYS play an ineliminable role.

 

I find comparing Richard Rorty to Paul Boghossian interesting in this discussion

well you certainly stated that very well, it sums up nicely what i believe

I don't think anyone contends that Plantinga is lazy, just that he is wrong.

i don't think industriousness alone can explain his impact on philosophy... read what time magazine had to say about him, way back in the 80s, and this was before he became "known"... even his philosophical counterparts are pretty lavish in their respect (albeit grudgingly)

As to your belief "that we all take authorities we find palatable and run with them," I say that some people do and some people don't. That's one reason these discussions can go awry.

well that's a good point

All religions and political movements have their learned scholars. The people heavily invested in reading and understanding what those scholars have to say are naturally reluctant to admit that they have wasted much time in that pursuit. Never mind that -- had they spent that time studying some other scholars -- they would have believed, equally strongly, the opposite.

not necessarily so, although it's true (as i've repeatedly admitted) that we all enter the room with our own presuppositions

[hrothgar]

read plantinga's proof re: naturalism vs. evolution

I've always thought Plantinga's "proof" regarding naturalism and evolution to be laughable. There is a hole in his argument big enough to drive a truck through.

for you to be correct tell me what warrant you can give for truth and evolution to be necessary for survival... he is simply saying, and his proof is compelling, that evolution is an epistemic defeater for naturalism... are you really telling us you have read him enough to understand what he means by defeaters, how he arrived at the term, and that you can formulate an epistemology that can compete with him, or are you saying what i said above, that we all take authorities we find palatable and run with them?

Press, forthcoming)

Jimmy:

 

You suggested that I go out and read Plantinga's proof regarding Naturalism v Evolution. It turns out that I've read this this before. However, I went out and reviewed the "proof" again. Admittedly, I didn't go out and purchase a copy of Plantiga's book. However, I did provide a link to the summary presentation that I used

 

Upon re-reading said proof, I decided that I had exactly the same problem with it that I did the first time I read it. Plantinga is using circular logic.

 

Moreover, I provided a description precisely why I believe this proof is badly flawed.

 

You responded that Plantinga has a whole host of degrees...

[luke warm]

read plantinga's proof re: naturalism vs. evolution

I've always thought Plantinga's "proof" regarding naturalism and evolution to be laughable. There is a hole in his argument big enough to drive a truck through.

for you to be correct tell me what warrant you can give for truth and evolution to be necessary for survival... he is simply saying, and his proof is compelling, that evolution is an epistemic defeater for naturalism... are you really telling us you have read him enough to understand what he means by defeaters, how he arrived at the term, and that you can formulate an epistemology that can compete with him, or are you saying what i said above, that we all take authorities we find palatable and run with them?

Press, forthcoming)

Jimmy:

 

You suggested that I go out and read Plantinga's proof regarding Naturalism v Evolution. It turns out that I've read this this before. However, I went out and reviewed the "proof" again. Admittedly, I didn't go out and purchase a copy of Plantiga's book. However, I did provide a link to the summary presentation that I used

 

Upon re-reading said proof, I decided that I had exactly the same problem with it that I did the first time I read it. Plantinga is using circular logic.

 

Moreover, I provided a description precisely why I believe this proof is badly flawed.

 

You responded that Plantinga has a whole host of degrees...

richard, the posting of his accomplishments was meant to, given the link you posted, convey that we each have our own authorities... the validity of his argument is all that should concern us, and you did mention one objection to that (begging the question)... however, i still maintain that in order to actually demonstrate that R is a culprit one needs to show the necessity of truth *and* evolution for survival

 

as for question begging, plantinga says (in another place) concerning this objection:

 

"Once you see how the argument works, you may think that asserting or believing the premise is tantamount to asserting or believing the conclusion; the canny atheist will say that he does not believe it is possible that there be a maximally great being. But would not a similar criticism hold of any valid argument? Take any valid argument: once you see how it works, you may think that asserting or believing the premise is tantamount to asserting or believing the conclusion."

 

as for his (and he was the first to formulate such a proof, but not the first to mention the possibility - cs lewis comes to mind), even darwin had this to say:

 

"With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind...?"*

 

– Charles Darwin

 

*Letter to William Graham, Down, July 3, 1881. In The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Including an Autobiographical Chapter, ed. Francis Darwin (London: John Murray, Albermarle Street, 1887), Volume 1, pp. 315-316.

[hrothgar]

duplicate

[hrothgar]

as for question begging, plantinga says (in another place) concerning this objection:

 

"Once you see how the argument works, you may think that asserting or believing the premise is tantamount to asserting or believing the conclusion; the canny atheist will say that he does not believe it is possible that there be a maximally great being. But would not a similar criticism hold of any valid argument? Take any valid argument: once you see how it works, you may think that asserting or believing the premise is tantamount to asserting or believing the conclusion."

Geometry is impressive because the entire system bootstraps itself:

 

You start with a very small set of axioms and postulates... Next thing you know, you're proving the square root of 2 is irrational or demonstrating the Pythagorean theorem.

 

Part of the appeal of the system is wealth of different conclusions that can be drawn from a very parsimonious set of assumptions.

 

I'd argue that this is very different than choosing convenient parameters...

[helene_t]

Thinking about your post, I recalled a book I read many years ago titled When Prophecy Fails. For the true believers, the failure of the central prophecy of their faith actually strengthened belief.

Yes. I recall from an anthology of psychology that similar observations had been made in other cults. Although cognitive resonance in general seems plausible to me, I found it weird that evidence against a particular belief would strengthen that belief.

 

The thing is, when trying to understand irrational belief I compare it to things I used to believe in myself as a child. Sometimes it works but with respect to the dissonance mechanism it just doesn't. I used to believe that property rights were bad for social justice, that vegetarian diet was healthy, and that sex differences in psychological traits were culturally determined. When confronted with contrary evidence, maybe my rhetoric would become more aggressive, and maybe for that reason it would appear to an observer that my "belief" was strengthened, but I am pretty sure it was gradually weakened. As a more recent example, I certainly don't hope that a bad result from an undisciplined preempt strengthens my (probably irrational) likeness for undisciplined preempts.

 

Maybe there is one crucial difference between this UFO cult and my believe in vegetarian diet: The UFO cult may serve a social purpose, so evidence against the cult's dogma becomes a thread to the survival of the group. So the believers try to protect the group believing more strongly: maybe they were afraid that some of their peers might lose their faith. This was not the case for me. I didn't have any vegy-fundamentalist friends so it didn't cost me much to give up my belief.

[kenberg]

About philosophy, logic, circular reasoning. There is some truth to the claim that logical arguments shift the issue from the conclusion to the premises that imply those conclusions. But in practical terms this is not really right. great advances in science, relativity theory for example, no doubt have a philosophical component to them and certainly there are assumptions. But when all that is admitted, Einstein says if you perform certain experiments you will get certain results. If the results don't happen, you go back to the drawing board.

[barmar]

So the atheists here say:

There is no logical that "God" is there. A lot of things can be explained without the use of religion. And you cannot prove that God is there, so there is no God.

 

I really don't get it.

 

Religion is about believe. Better guys like me tried to find "facts" for gods, some of the first known was Thomas of Aquin. Some thought that they found facts, but as far as I know the modern theology denies the ability to find prooves.

While some atheists may feel that the lack of proof implies that God doesn't exist, it's not necessary to go so far. It's enough to say that if there's no proof that God is there, there's no reason to act as if he does.

 

Put simply, we don't normally base our actions on things we don't know, or have a good reason to believe. For instance, if a non-scientist claims that there will be an earthquake tomorrow, you probably wouldn't take him seriously, and you wouldn't leave town to avoid it. His claim is unsupported, so you don't change your life based on it.

 

Yet, billions of people make decisions about how to live their lives based on similarly unsupported claims about what God wants them to do. Is a proclamation from the Pope really any more believable than a guy on the street corner shouting "the Big One is coming!"?

 

I would like to apologize for my earlier denigration of religious people. I've been reading South Park and Philosophy, and the chapter "Stan Marsh and the Ethics of Belief" has some good material on how to think of people living under the God delusion. It quotes from an episode where Stan Challenges talks to the audience of television medium John Edwards:

At first I thought you were all just stupid listening to this douche's advice, but now I understand that you're all here because you're scared.  You're scared to death and he offers you some kind of understanding.  You all want to believe in it so much, I know you do.  You find comfort in the tought that your loved ones are floating around trying to talk to you, but think about it: is that really what you want?  To just be floating around after you die having to talk to this asshole?  We need to recognize this stuff for wha it is: magic tricks.  Because whatever is really going on in life and in death is much more amazing than this douche.

 

He was talking about a psychic, but the same thing applies to religion. While being religious isn't being stupid, it's using wishful thinking because you're scared of the alternative (e.g. you can't stand the idea that there's no "meaning" to life, so you assume there's a God that creates this purpose). The article also quotes philosopher W.K. Clifford's "The Athics of Belief"

Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence.... [it is] wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

Critical thinking is a cornerstone of human intelligence. I feel sorry for all the people who avoid it, preferring the lazy approach of faith rather than understanding.

[Al_U_Card]

We are all hard-wired to contain the information and indications that we need to live and evolve.

 

Experience provides us with the proof and integration allows us to take advantage of the content.

 

Faith and belief are states of mind that interpose themselves between our knowledge and our experience. For this reason they can interfere with our observations and colour our approach such that we take a path that is not the one that we were designed to make. Never a good result, no matter who is keeping score.

[barmar]

Put simply, we don't normally base our actions on things we don't know, or have a good reason to believe. For instance, if a non-scientist claims that there will be an earthquake tomorrow, you probably wouldn't take him seriously, and you wouldn't leave town to avoid it. His claim is unsupported, so you don't change your life based on it.

I'd like to expand a bit on what I wrote there.

 

Most of the time, if someone tells you you need to do something that will inconvenience you, you'll ask them to convince you with justification. For instance, leaving town because of this earthquake prediction would make you cancel your plans for that day; you'll say "Prove it" before you bother. Yet religion demands major lifestyle changes, far more than just an inconvenience for a day, yet people go along with them without asking for any reason to believe it. Does this make sense?

 

And going back to the comment about lack of evidence not being a disproof of God. That's true, but somewhat irrelevant. If someone makes a claim that's outrageous or unbelievable, the burden of proof is on them to convince people. If someone said they could levitate, you wouldn't take their word for it, you'd demand a demonstration. And even then you'd be skeptical, because you know that there are magicians who use trickery to make it look like they're floating, so you'd want to examine it very closely. Yet they don't ask the same of all the miraculous claims made by most religions. Isn't there something disproportionate about this? We demand proof of someone floating a few feet in the air, but not of the far more outlandish notion that an omnipotent and omnicient being created the universe and cares what each and every human being does, and demands that they pray to him. I don't need proof that the sun will rise tomorrow, since we know it's been doing it every day for as long as humans have been around, and our understanding of why leads us to believe it was doing it for billions of years before; so when someone claims that the sun stood still during the battle of Beth-Horon, it only makes sense that we should ask for more than just their word that it happened.

 

Why should the notion of religion cause people to abandon their normal faculties of critical thinking? Apparently, the need for a higher purpose outweighs common sense.

[Codo]

Barmar,

 

You have a very strong opinion. Fine for you. Hold on to it and be happy.

 

But you have really no idea what religion is about and why there are no proofs.

 

I have no idea why you try to proof your opinion with words of a guy I don't know about a magican who claims to talk to death people. This is so far away, it must be a joke, but somehow I missed the point where I must laugh.

 

I really agree that religion is a help when you are scared. It is a help when you are alone. It is a help to explain the world and it was more helpful centuries ago when the knowledge was more limited then it is now.

But this does not proof the religion is wrong. It makes it possible that religions are a human invention. But it is as possible that religion is what it is and God gave it to us.

 

And you really believe that atheist make their descissions based on facts? Sorry, impossible. If you want to check first how things work and if you want to check it personally, you better don't use cars, airplanes, the internet etc. You don't have the time to check anything. You have to trust others that all these inventions work. But you seem to trust nobody, you have to check anything yourself.

 

And please don't tell me that you have seen millions of cars and they all work well. So you can trust them now.

If this is your POV, you better trust believers too. They are around here much longer then cars. :)

 

And one last point: Religion "demands major lifestyle changes". That is new to me.

I try to follow the ten commitments. And I would try to follow them (okay without the first one) when I am an atheist too. So there are no big changes required in my lifestyle. I really believe that Atheists like Gerben or MikeH do life a live not far away from the standards I have. So there simply is no difference in lifestyle between sane belivers and sane atheists.

[onoway]

Any policeman will tell you that if a group of non involved people see an event, their various descriptions of the event may vary widely, from descriptions of the people involved, or the sequence of events to actually who did what. They all agree on the basic result of the event, just not on some of the details of how it all happened. Are any of them exactly right? How do you know?If so, which one was it? Was everyone else just too lazy to pay attention? Or was each reacting out of his own experience and understanding?

 

And oh the world would be a weary place if there was no mystery or wonder in it. The idea that all things should be able to be explained reminds me of the teachers whose idea of teaching literature was to dissect it to dust. They could tell you exactly how a piece of prose or poetry was able to capture your imagination and involve you in its life but damned if any of them could do it. They could put the components together but the result was as effective as reading the sides of a cereal box. Why is that? And more to the point, is this necessarilly more valuable to anyone than learning to appreciate the work for what it is?

 

Before I learned to speak a little spanish I thought it the most lovely language to listen to. Now I hear the sense but have lost the music. Well, that's a trade off I am willing to make because communicating is more important to me. But if someone will never have a need to communicate in Spanish, why is it necessary for him or her to lose the music? If they get pleasure from listening to the sounds of the language, like birdsong, without needing to know what the words mean, what right do I have to say that that person is mentally lazy because they don't have the same values or needs that I do about learning Spanish?

 

As has been pointed out elsewhere no-one can figure out everything on their own.People choose where to focus their energies, and to patronize someone who doesn't share your values is more demeaning to the patronizer than the patronized.

[kenberg]

So there simply is no difference in lifestyle between sane believers and sane atheists.

 

This has certainly been my experience. The lifestyles in both camps vary greatly. During the Goldwater campaign Ayn Rand was quoted, or maybe paraphrased, as saying she agreed with Goldwater on every subject except for the existence of God. At the other end of the political spectrum, in the early 70s a Methodist Minister friend of mine got into some hot water by performing a marriage ceremony between two men. He now is a partner in a company doing environmentally friendly construction.

 

To put it another way, I don't really have trouble with those who say God watches over this country, as long as it's understood that we here on Earth are expected to do both the wise planning and the heavy lifting on our own.

 

Btw, I was talking to my minister friend a while back about the gay marriage adventure. The church hierarchy was of course upset but they couldn't find anything in the rules that forbade it. I can well imagine that when the rules were written back in perhaps the nineteenth century or so no one thought of putting in a rule forbidding a minister from joining two men in matrimony. I can imagine the folks at the rules committee: "I think we need a rule forbidding a minister from marrying two men" "Are you nuts? Shall we also have a rule forbidding a marriage ceremony between two horses? Get real" etc. Probably now they have a rule.

[debrose]

I try to follow the ten commitments. And I would try to follow them (okay without the first one) when  I am an atheist too. So there are no big changes required in my lifestyle. I really believe that Atheists like Gerben or MikeH do life a live not far away from the standards I have. So there simply is no difference in lifestyle between sane belivers and sane atheists.

Hi Roland.

 

Regarding your statement that you try to follow the ten commitments, and would do the same when an atheist, I wonder what list you are referring to. You grant that, as an atheist, you would make an exception for the first one, but since the first four on any "ten commandments" list which I am familiar with all have to do with "god", it seems unlikely an atheist would try to follow any of these.

There are many interpretations out there, and I don't believe there is a specific list of ten anywhere in the text of the Bible. Is the version you try to follow something like this one I found on Wikipedia?

 

1 - I am the Lord your God . You shall have no other gods before me

2 - You shall not make for yourself an idol

3- You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God

4 - Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy

5 -Honor your father and mother

6 - You shall not murder*

7- You shall not commit adultery

8 -You shall not steal***

9 - You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

10 - You shall not covet your neighbor's house You shall not covet your neighbor's wife

 

Speaking as an "atheist" (though I agree with Sam Harris that a word to say someone doesn't believe something ought not be necessary - just as we don't refer to people as "non-astrologists"), here's how I relate my own lifestyle and standards to the above list:

 

Numbers 6, 8, and 9 on that list are rather important to me

 

Numbers 1-4 are meaningless to me

 

Number 5 I'm not sure about. Perhaps we should "honor" all fellow human beings unless they prove undeserving, and a mother or father should be no exception.

 

To whatever extent I might try to follow #7, it would already be covered by #9 (which I read to mean "be honest").

 

Finally, while one would probably be happiest following number 10, it seems relatively unimportant (as compared with murder?), and also impractical to try to judge anyone's morality by their thoughts rather than their actions.

 

Richard Dawkins in the God Delusion, offers a set of "New Ten Commandments", which he says he happened to find on an atheist website. I'd like to share this:

1- Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you

2- In all things, strive to cause no harm

3- Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect

4- Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted

5-Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.

6- Always seek to be learning something new.

7- Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished believe if it does not conform to them.

8-Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you/

9- form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others

10- Question everything

 

Perhaps this would make for a good BBO thread - an invitation to come up with a list of "Ten Commandments" to live a rewarding and ethical life. I wonder how many would include PLAY BRIDGE!

[kenberg]

The Commandments as given by Debra from the Wikipedia seem so much more soft spoken than what I remember as a child. eg The Lord thy God is a jealous God, thou shalt have no other Gods before Me. Also, I had thought the first five, not the first four, dealt with the relationship between man and God, the last five dealt with man's relationships among men. Am I just totally mis-remembering my childhood? Or have the Commandments been set to more modern and softer words? We are speaking of maybe 1948 to 1953 here. Of course I also recall something about not coveting your neighbor's ass. Boys notice such phrasings even if we understood it referred to a donkey.

 

Pardon the rather inconsequential issue, but I am curious.

[PassedOut]

The Commandments as given by Debra from the Wikipedia seem so much more soft spoken than what I remember as a child. eg The Lord thy God is a jealous God, thou shalt have no other Gods before Me. Also, I had thought the first five, not the first four, dealt with the relationship between man and God, the last five dealt with man's relationships among men. Am I just totally mis-remembering my childhood? Or have the Commandments been set to more modern and softer words?  We are speaking of maybe 1948 to 1953 here. Of course I also recall something about not coveting your neighbor's ass. Boys notice such phrasings even if we understood it referred to a donkey.

 

Pardon the rather inconsequential issue, but I am curious.

Because the bible actually has fifteen imperatives, different religions parse them differently into the ten commandments. Jews divide them into two groups of five commandments, orthodox and protestant christians into groups of four and six, and roman catholics and lutherans into groups of three and seven.

 

Here is a link to the wikipedia article: Ten Commandments.

 

The quote you remember from childhood appears both in Exodus 20:5-6 and Deuteronomy 5:9-10.

 

I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Yes, this god seems a bit petulant.

[barmar]

And you really believe that atheist make their descissions based on facts? Sorry, impossible. If you want to check first how things work and if you want to check it personally, you better don't use cars, airplanes, the internet etc. You don't have the time to check anything. You have to trust others that all these inventions work. But you seem to trust nobody, you have to check anything yourself.

No one demands 100% proof for everything. As you say, you wouldn't be able to move. But we expect SOME evidence. Ordinary people didn't start taking airplane trips until a sufficient number of test flights had been done, and they saw that it was reasonably safe.

 

My point is that religion expects you to believe things with virtually NO evidence. And the things you're expected to believe are quite far removed from ordinary experience. I.e. they should be unbelievable. Yet people routinely believe them, for little other reason than they don't wish to believe the alternative.

 

And one last point: Religion "demands major lifestyle changes". That is new to me.

 

Praying towards Mecca 5 times a day. Attending Mass on Sunday or Synagogue on Saturday.

 

Dietary restrictions (kosher, fish on Friday, sacred cows).

 

Clothing requirements.

 

Language (not taking God's name in vain) and art (no graven images, no depictions of Mohammed).

 

Lent.

 

Gender-specific rules.

 

and so on.

 

Individually most of these are mere inconveniences (although the sexist rules go beyond that), but taken as a whole they pretty significant requirements on how you live your life if you're going to follow all the tenets of a religion.

[luke warm]

My point is that religion expects you to believe things with virtually NO evidence.

i guess it depends on the evidence and one's presuppostions... Jesus said that even if a man rose from the dead there would be unbelief... so it depends on what one accepts as evidence - was there a moon landing? did elvis die? see what i mean?

[matmat]

My point is that religion expects you to believe things with virtually NO evidence.

i guess it depends on the evidence and one's presuppostions... Jesus said that even if a man rose from the dead there would be unbelief... so it depends on what one accepts as evidence - was there a moon landing? did elvis die? see what i mean?

no. i don't. is there actual footage of the man rising from the grave? third party accounts written several hundred years post the supposed event would hardly qualify as evidence.