Your thoughts on this essay on religion?

[Francis Galton]

The following is from http://www.thebirdman.org/

The Falsity of Religion: Twelve Indisputable Arguments

By John "Birdman" Bryant: The World's Most Controversial Libertarian

Religion today hangs on the horns of a dilemma: On the one hand, it is false in the scientific sense, as we shall demonstrate below; but on the other hand, because religion in one form or another has been around as long as recorded history -- and in fact has played a central role in man's social and personal life -- it is almost certain that religion is useful in the sense that it has helped men to survive. The real dilemma of religion, however, is that it must be believed in order to be useful, yet this is impossible when people know that it is false.

The obvious solution to this dilemma -- if indeed there is a solution -- is to discover what is useful about religion, and to try to make use of this knowledge. This I have attempted to do in my book The Most Powerful Idea Ever Discovered. But we will be stymied in our attempt to accomplish this task -- or at least to bring it to fruition in the sense of teaching others -- if we do not first and finally sweep away the foolishness of religious belief by making a plain and clear statement as to religion's literal falsity. Accordingly, we cite below what we view as twelve compelling reasons why a rational person must regard religion as false.

Complete text at http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Relig/Relig-Atheist.html

[always_learning]

I fail to see the purpose of this post.

“it is almost certain that religion is useful in the sense that it has helped men to survive”

The post hints at this already but does not say it out front, it is not religion that has help men but merely part of its content that has. Note that religion was dreamed up by men, so really anything “good” to come out of religion is the ideas of the men who created it.

The post suggests that the “solution” is to pick apart what is good in religion and use it out side of the religion to better ourselves. It over looks is the fact that there was nothing useful about religion that could not have been developed outside of it (anything that is good within religion did not come from it but from the minds of men who happened to blindly follow it). So what this post is really saying is that we have something to learn from an irrational belief system, when in fact we do not. There are better places to go to learn how to better ones life than turning to religion however mildly that turn may be.

[Francis Galton]

Religion HAD to have been at least reproductively useful, otherwise humans would not have evolved an instinctual behavioral inclination for religious thought.

Are you familiar with the theory of natural selection?

[Richard_Halley]

Galton, men have volition... Those who believe in religion do not do so for out of a genetic disorder. Therefore natural selection doesn't apply.

[Roy]

To say "men dream up religion" is to say that they are personally responsible for their dreams as well. Dream and myth have autonomous aspects with recurrent themes that of which ordinary people as dreamers and artists/creative intellects are all too often completely unaware.

Admitting that dreams may be meaningful means that the unconscious is more than a place of forgetfullness. This can come as a blow to prideful ego-bound thinkers.

I have the feeling that very few of you at this forum have put any time in studying the great professor of comparative religions, Joseph Cambpell.

Einstein once said something like, "If you want your child to be intelligent, teach them mythology. If you want your child to be more intelligent, teach them even more mythology."

His point is that there is a relation to the creative and intellectual process which is in essence a refined form of animism and mythological thinking.

Cut yourself off from that at your own peril and create an illusion of your own seperateness from nature and evolution.

Roy

[Richard_Halley]

Dream and myth have autonomous aspects with recurrent themes that of which ordinary people as dreamers and artists/creative intellects are all too often completely unaware.

The fact that someone is unaware of something does not excuse them from responsibility for it. Closing your eyes while you do something, does not mean you did not do it.

Mythology (like other literature) is usefull in that it points to values... but religious mythology points to the wrong ones.

[Roy]

The problem in responsibility is more in the evaluation than in the simple recounting of the facts of your participation. It is the meaning of your participation where the crux of your responsibility lies.

To condemn all religious mythology in one sentence is a little broad. What I have learned from Nietzsche, Jung, and Joseph Campbell would preclude making such statement. Robert Graves' interpretation of myths as historic political iconography also precludes seeing mythology in that vein.

In fact, one of the sickest shifts in world culture came about as a result of Socrates' losing faith in any legitimate meaning for the tragic world view.

As a result, we have had 2,000 years of idealism-fascism in the name of progress conducted by the "philosopher princes" of the moment. Some progress has been real, but which has also raised the demand on the perfectability of the world as everyone embraced the Platonic notion of an ideal form (for society) which is realisable once the correction is introduced as in Christianity or Marxism.

Socrates is no match in terms of intellect and understanding, interestingly enough, for Diotima, the woman seer Socrates quotes. Her understanding of love is a marriage of mythology and rational thought and is easily the most insightful view of love in The Symposium. Have many of you read Plato's Symposium?

Speaking of myth again, in the US, as an example, unable to "bear our crosses", we go about as madmen with social promotion in schools and affirmative action to right wrongs with other wrongs. As Nietzsche said, "Suffering itself is taken as something to be abolished."

If you think the conscious mind understands and creates all, we ought to discuss the meaning of a myth, such as "How Odin Lost His Eye" to understand that meaning is not created by the conscious mind but can be perceived by it.

The conscious mind creates and has been created by a process deeper than itself.

Roy

[Richard_Halley]

Perhaps a correction of my previous statment is in order...

The collected mythology of any given religion points to the wrong values. There may be specific myths which point to good values, but the entire mythology of the religion is no good.

In fact, one of the sickest shifts in world culture came about as a result of Socrates' losing faith in any legitimate meaning for the tragic world view.

I think you need to explain what "tragic world view" means... if it is what it sounds like, than I seriously doubt this statment. And, by the way, losing "faith" is always good.

Speaking of myth again, in the US, as an example, unable to "bear our crosses", we go about as madmen with social promotion in schools and affirmative action to right wrongs with other wrongs. As Nietzsche said, "Suffering itself is taken as something to be abolished."

Suffering should be abolished (as much as possible), however, this may not be done by forcing more suffering... Your argument seems to be that, because some people try to stop suffering with more suffering, suffering should not be stopped. An absurd claim.

If you think the conscious mind understands and creates all, we ought to discuss the meaning of a myth, such as "How Odin Lost His Eye" to understand that meaning is not created by the conscious mind but can be perceived by it.

Nobody is arguing that consciousness is omnipotent... Meaning is not created by the conscious mind, but art--which represents meaning--is. If I paint something, it may represent a multitude of things, but I still made it and any attribute it has comes from me... my only choice is whether I am aware of its meaning or not.

[Roy]

I thought Ayn Rand's followers were big on Nietzsche.

The tragic world view holds that tragedy is an indispensable part of life. That life is a pot into which we are thrown to experience good and evil, and that that is the will of the gods. Conflict is not always avoidable.

It is difficult to grasp the import of it without a thorough study of Nietzsche. The early 70's book, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology deals with the issue well on a practical level.

Platonic philosphy was the result of the rejection by Socrates and his followers of that point of view because it made god good and evil. God had to be good, and if society in its reality was imperfect, it was because its members had incompletely realized the need to find that corrective to the real to bring it to the level of the ideal.

It leads to the tyranny of idealism in an actual tyrant or demogogue who is seen as the philosoper prince.

Take a look at the US Food and Drug Administration for an example of that mentality in action. Marxism and many aspects of western religion are similar.

Art is not the product of the conscious mind anymore than your dreams are at night. They are images mediated to some extent by the conscious mind, but that is not the same thing. Most artist are not good at thinking at all. This observation is consistent with the idea that art is for the most part not conscious.

If you read a book such as We, you could come to understand how much of a message in time a work of art may be without any of its members or participants being able to voice the source of the fascination, especially its own artists.

Tristan and Iseult was the myth, and I don't have time right now to recount the story in the detail that is needed to make the case.

Roy

PS How could you conclude that I had said that suffering should not be abolished? I said no such thing. I said that people take suffering as something to be abolished. Suffering can be minimized but is a part of life. How we minimize and to what extent reveals who we are.

Roy

[Richard_Halley]

You say this:

PS How could you conclude that I had said that suffering should not be abolished? I said no such thing.

After this:

The tragic world view holds that tragedy is an indispensable part of life. That life is a pot into which we are thrown to experience good and evil, and that that is the will of the gods.

In any case, no Objectivism is not "big on Nietzsche." They share some points of view... but they are seperate philosophies which also often disagree.

[AisA]

We can say with finality that there is no end to the mental gymnastics people will exert to whitewash and apologize for the evil of religon.

[RadCap]

"To condemn all religious mythology in one sentence is a little broad."

Translation:

"To condemn all false concepts in one sentence is a little broad."

[Roy]

Judging religion in balance means accounting for its good and evil aspects.

A study of the evolution of Europe such as A History of Private Life may increase your appreciation of Christian contribution to the welfare of Europe.

About concepts. Yes, it is too fast. Concepts are often not in themselves true or false but used badly or well depending on context. So, Redcap, you are doing here what you have just complained that others had done to you in argument- straw men.

It is as Buckminster Fuller said about pollution. It is just something useful and good found in the wrong place or in the wrong concentration.

Ever since physics became antinomial in its fundamental concepts, the truly modern interpreter has been forced to acknowledge that- as one physicist put it- "the opposite of a good idea is a bad one, but the opposite of a great idea is another great idea".

So, I guess whether the phenomenon in question is false depends on whether it is a simple good idea or a great one.

Most myths, as Einstein understood and Campbell and Jung have argued well, belong in the great category.

In any case, RadCap, understanding ourselves in our historic context means seeing how thought and understanding evolved and not putting ourselves outside of history. To do otherwise is hubris and much of America's success in avoiding fascism and communism has come from a pragmatic approach that doesn't put all in intellecual formula. Europe, as one of Jung's patients dreamed, was a place of unbridled intellect and idealism which had to fall into fascism and communism.

Have you never been shocked by the wisdom in some myth or story that seems idiotic or simple after you have been forced to or had the good luck to understand?

As I said, let's take a myth and see what your refined intellects here at your forum can say about it.

Roy

[y_feldblum]

Do you often read works where the same words, only paragraphs apart, are spelled in different ways?

[Roy]

Really I don't understand why I have been warned about ad hominem attacks, and yet, you continue to criticize me on my capacity to proofread or whatever in the middle of a bout of the flu.

Do you actually have anything to say of a respectful nature that is relevant to the ongoing arguement?

That would be a change of pace and appreciated. Your third comment of an ad hominem nature. I think I should alert the administrator.

Roy

[y_feldblum]

Redcap, Radcap. In studies of less recent works, one often comes across what I noted above.

Often enough, I have nothing to say on topic. If you don't like it, tough. Have a field day alerting the admins.

I find my style more fun for me than just getting straight to the point. If you don't like it, tough. Have a field day alerting the admins.

[AshRyan]

Often enough, I have nothing to say on topic.  If you don't like it, tough.  Have a field day alerting the admins.

feldblum, if you have nothing to say on topic, then please don't say anything.

I find my style more fun for me than just getting straight to the point.  If you don't like it, tough.  Have a field day alerting the admins.

While you often engage in serious, valuable discussion here, it seems like lately the majority of your posts have been just one line off-topic jabs that sometimes come close to ad hominem. That's not to say that less serious posts can't also be valuable, but in general I'd appreciate it if you could try to put more thought into your posts and thereby help maintain a bit more of a serious intellectual atmosphere on this board.

Am I telling you not to have fun? No. There is certainly a time and a place for joking around--even on this board, and sometimes even within a serious discussion. But I am saying that serious discussions generally call for serious responses, and it would be nice if you showed the other posters here more respect by taking them seriously and responding in a way that reflects that.

[DavidV]

I have not had time to read this thread, but I have read the linked site in depth, and I’d just like to mention that John "Birdman" Bryant is a racist and anti-Semite who blames Jews for Marxism (laughable since virtually every single advocate of capitalism this century has been ethnically Jewish) and thinks that (a) the Holocaust was overblown and ( that’s too bad, because the Jews probably deserve one. Other than those "minor" issues, he's a better libertarian than most.

[DavidV]

Really I don't understand why I have been warned about ad hominem attacks, and yet, you continue to criticize me on my capacity to proofread or whatever in the middle of a bout of the flu.

The difference between your ad hominem and feldblum’s is that the latter was humorous and light-hearted, whereas yours was not. Still, neither is appropriate for a serious intellectual discussion, so I’ll ask you both to stop.

P.S. In light of the continued proliferation of atrocious spelling, I hereby declare open season on bad spelling.

[y_feldblum]

I hereby declare open season on bad spelling.

My field day.

[RadCap]

"Concepts are often not in themselves true or false but used badly or well depending on context."

This is false. The validity of a concept is determined by reality, not by how a consciousness uses it.

It is also false that "history" determines the validity of a concept. It does not.

-

y - you started a thread "Redcap Radcap" I believe you were aiming your comments at someone else, correct? If not, I have no idea what you are referencing.

[Roy]

Well, of course. Without a consciousness, you couldn't determine a legitimate use of a concept, could you? Reality is often taken to be the last thing we think is true, as the history of science has often demonstrated. Instead of reality, we simply are taken by our opinion of it.

So, as I said: as the historical course of science demonstrates, "reality" and its perception is an ongoing affair.

Heisenberg proved that electrons and other sub-atomic particles have no distinct boundaries and are ontologically uncertain (as opposed to epistemologically uncertain). Having no absolutely distinct attributes, there is no necessary effect to be predicted as there is no certain cause to serve as antecedent.

So, the original concept of the uncuttability of the matter at some point got modified several thousand years after its original conception.

In other words, "reality" took a while to catch up with the concept and "reality" struck, the concept of uncuttability got modified.

So, the concept underwent revision. That means that the opposite idea had to be admitted and that the understanding of the phenomenon of the electron and of matter itself changed.

The same could be said of light. It is seen antinomiously as both particle and wave. This means that warring concepts have been reconciled.

Concepts historically turn out often to be as I stated: tools which need to be used properly. Usually this means that the validity of an opposite notion must be admitted and integrated at some point.

Roy

[RadCap]

So you are a thru and thru subjectivist.

==

"Without a consciousness, you couldn't determine a legitimate use of a concept, could you? "

This is an irrelevant statement because ONLY consciousness can create concepts. In other words, WHEN one speaks of concepts one NECESSARILY speaks of a consciousness creating and validating that concept. As such, the assertion does nothing to address my statements.

"Reality is often taken to be the last thing we think is true, as the history of science has often demonstrated."

All you are saying is that man is NOT infallable, and as such, in any given instance he can be wrong. Problem is, the premise is NOT an argument. So it cannot be used to defend religion, nor can it be used to defend "history" as the validation of concepts. In other words, it does nothing to address my statements.

You then try to present as 'proven' fact, theories which ACCEPT contradictions as valid instead of rejecting them because of those contradictions. (You will find that such theories are rejected here for that very reason - ie for the reason that they violate the law of identity.) Using them as examples, you say:

"Usually this means that the validity of an opposite notion must be admitted and integrated at some point."

Put simply if a concept is false - ie it does not describe reality accurately - then it is DISMISSED. One may take the concepts which constituted that concept and use them to create a new concept. But one may not take the non-real concept and accept it AS real.

Thus one PROPERLY dismisses all false concepts. One references REALITY as the source of validation for concepts. And one does NOT reference history as the source of validation for concepts.

In other words, NONE of your sentences here have actually addressed these statements, let alone refuted them.

==

Now, as an admin, I have one question and one question only for you. Before you post about ANYTHING else, including the above, I want a post devoted solely to the answer "Why are you posting on this site."

Please do not post any other posts until you get a response to that answer.

[fede]

I've heard a woman on a documentary saying something very interesting.

"The height of arrogance is the height of control of those who created God in their own image"

Implying that men (religions) created God in their own image to control others.

And how much damage religion has caused.

I think Religions are necessary to control certain people behaviors, through the fear of God.

Otherwise it would be anarchy.

But also Religions separate people, if you belong to one you are in conflict with all the others.

How many wars because of disagreement of religion beliefs?

It's amazing how advance we are in technology, and how far behind we are on religion beliefs. How is that possible?

Religions should be allowing progress, just like technology does. If it weren’t like that we would probably still be riding horses.

So many things that were design for old times do not apply for these times.

Why does religions have to be so closed to new ideas?