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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Rolan7]

Logical positivism was an early 20th century branch of philosophy, so there's been about a century of philosophical musing on it. In simple terms, it assumes that the world, and our thoughts about it, consist of elementary facts and that we can apply logical rules to these facts to establish the truth. However, probably the most famous phrase is translated as something like: on that we cannot speak we must remain silent. This is sometimes interpreted as ambivalence in logical positivism towards nonsense, mysticism, gods and so on. It doesn't outright deny their existence but says that philosophers can't say anything about them because they're inherently outside of logical analysis.

I guess that's what faith is:  Belief in things which are outside of logical analysis, which (as the author put it, a bit oddly) "Cannot be true or false".

Miracles destroy faith, because they're inherently observable.  If Jesus comes down and heals a leper in front of a crowd, they might quite reasonably conclude that he's telling the truth about being the son of God and they should worship him.  Or at least that he has vast unexplained powers and they should do as he says to be safe.

So if God really wants faith, maybe it makes sense that miracles never happen in a way that the scientific community can verify them.  If transubstantiation suddenly started working, scientists would start praying, but they wouldn't gain faith.

Because faith in existing religions only comes from indoctrination.  Nobody comes to the Father except by Jesus?  Well, nobody comes to Jesus except by their father... or other Christians.  When allowed to find their own faith, people invent animism or materialism.  Which evolve into polytheism for stability, and then... Monotheism evolved from polytheism, and now self-propagates because of tenets like hell/salvation and the stability it brought to aggressive states, allowing them to conquer en mass (pun intended).

Also, God and Jesus supposedly jumpstarted Christianity with an incredible amount of flashy public miracles.  So much so that the uncorroborated, decades-later reports of such are treated as proof by people even today.  (Which is actually pure faith, but it looks better to have faith in a shaky document trail than an oral tradition and groupthink.)  Why was it okay to be an observable God then, but not now?

[scrdest]

Isn't that faith = not-logic thing a relatively post-hoc thing as far as religion goes?

[Micro102]

If you go along with the idea that the Christian god wants pure faith, then you run in the question "when did he start/stop giving people faith?". It could be set at 2000 years ago, or it could be never, and he just let it play out without any interference, or maybe it was 10,000 years ago and some other religion is the one that requires pure faith.

But in the end, you are going to have faith about the existence of this attempt to make pure faith, which god would have wanted to happen, which would require faith in that too, and so on so forth 

[Arx]

So, a question for all the Buddhists/Hindus/others who believe in the sanctity of all life etc.: would you take antibiotics?

[Frumple]

It's... I'm fairly sure the jainists are about the only ones that even approach taking it so far as to attempt to avoid such, Arx. Them, a few insane christian sects, probably some others... but respecting the sanctity of antibacterial life (or at least avoiding antibiotics, even if for other reasons) isn't high on most any belief system's priorities.

You can google pretty quickly re: the philosophical aspects. For buddhism, intent is more important that most things, and the (non)proliferation of suffering more or less the largest issue. To kill something out of necessity or self-preservation (and not enjoying the act), and that something being a thing which is incapable of suffering (which... bacteria are definitely below that threshold -- they're more biological automata than a living thing in regards to most things), is more or less a non-issue.

Hindu's a little more complicated, iirc, but it's not as predisposed against violence as buddhism, or radical systems associated with either. There's probably a few sects that would support such a stance, but... it's only a few, at most.

[Helgoland]

So, a question for all the Buddhists/Hindus/others who believe in the sanctity of all life etc.: would you take antibiotics?

Any buddhist still around to answer that question probably eats plants to stay alive, so I guess the answer is an automatic 'yes'

[mastahcheese]

So, a question for all the Buddhists/Hindus/others who believe in the sanctity of all life etc.: would you take antibiotics?

Any buddhist still around to answer that question probably eats plants to stay alive, so I guess the answer is an automatic 'yes'

I know I take antibiotics.
Then again, I'm not exactly a hardcore Buddhist, and the idea of "sanctity of all life" is not really one I'm all that keen on.

[Angle]

So, why do people have faith in one thing instead of another? Like, why have faith in your particular christian sect, instead of another christian sect? or instead of Islam?

Also, check this out: http://lesswrong.com/lw/kr/an_alien_god/

[Helgoland]

So, why do people have faith in one thing instead of another? Like, why have faith in your particular christian sect, instead of another christian sect? or instead of Islam?

Well, the Catholic Church is obviously right, so the question is moot

[SirQuiamus]

It's... I'm fairly sure the jainists are about the only ones that even approach taking it so far as to attempt to avoid such, Arx. Them, a few insane christian sects, probably some others... but respecting the sanctity of antibacterial life (or at least avoiding antibiotics, even if for other reasons) isn't high on most any belief system's priorities.

You can google pretty quickly re: the philosophical aspects. For buddhism, intent is more important that most things, and the (non)proliferation of suffering more or less the largest issue. To kill something out of necessity or self-preservation (and not enjoying the act), and that something being a thing which is incapable of suffering (which... bacteria are definitely below that threshold -- they're more biological automata than a living thing in regards to most things), is more or less a non-issue.

Hindu's a little more complicated, iirc, but it's not as predisposed against violence as buddhism, or radical systems associated with either. There's probably a few sects that would support such a stance, but... it's only a few, at most.

The sanctity of microbial life may not be very high on anyone's agenda as such, but let's not forget that certain religious denominations have adopted a comparable stance in their effort to bestow human rights to zygotes.

[Arx]

I'm not sure it's entirely accurate to compare the zygote to a bacterium.

On the Buddhism etc. thing, I wasn't expecting many to be so extreme. It just occurred to me as I was taking my daily medication that I was killing off a bunch of simple organisms for messing up a bigger one, and wondered how many people saw that as comparable to eating meat and so on.

[SirQuiamus]

I'm not sure it's entirely accurate to compare the zygote to a bacterium.

They are certainly as different as two lifeforms can be, but still comparable from an ethical perspective.

[Bohandas]

It's... I'm fairly sure the jainists are about the only ones that even approach taking it so far as to attempt to avoid such, Arx. Them, a few insane christian sects, probably some others... but respecting the sanctity of antibacterial life (or at least avoiding antibiotics, even if for other reasons) isn't high on most any belief system's priorities.

You can google pretty quickly re: the philosophical aspects. For buddhism, intent is more important that most things, and the (non)proliferation of suffering more or less the largest issue. To kill something out of necessity or self-preservation (and not enjoying the act), and that something being a thing which is incapable of suffering (which... bacteria are definitely below that threshold -- they're more biological automata than a living thing in regards to most things), is more or less a non-issue.

Hindu's a little more complicated, iirc, but it's not as predisposed against violence as buddhism, or radical systems associated with either. There's probably a few sects that would support such a stance, but... it's only a few, at most.

The sanctity of microbial life may not be very high on anyone's agenda as such, but let's not forget that certain religious denominations have adopted a comparable stance in their effort to bestow human rights to zygotes.

As a former zygote I take offense to that.

[Descan]

I'm not sure it's entirely accurate to compare the zygote to a bacterium.

They are certainly as different as two lifeforms can be, but still comparable from an ethical perspective.

Not... really. Most arguments along that is about the potential around the zygote. A single bacterium isn't about to split and grow into a human any time soon...

[TD1]

So, why do people have faith in one thing instead of another? Like, why have faith in your particular christian sect, instead of another christian sect? or instead of Islam?

Well, the Catholic Church is obviously right, so the question is moot

Oh, poppycock.
Even you acknowledge it's not truth.

Besides. Prods are smarter than Romans, so there.