Facts That Will Make Religious Debates Less Angry

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Hi all.

I've noticed that debates regarding religion tend to spiral into anger very quickly. Today, I want to share some information that will likely make religious debates less angry for the rest of eternity.

Fact 1: The science behind abiogenesis has yet to be fully resolved. This doesn't mean that abiogenesis has been proven impossible. It just means that theism and atheism are both logically acceptable positions. It's okay to have an opinion when science has not yet come to a hard conclusion. The science behind abiogenesis may be resolved at some point in the future. Evolution is a fact though.

Fact 2: If we were to prove the existence of God, this would not prove the existence of the Christian God. If we somehow prove that abiogenesis is impossible, this does not prove the Bible. Any God could have made the first life forms. It could have been Gaia. It could have been Odin. It could have been Atum.

Fact 3: Religion does not influence human behavior as much as some people think it does. Nearly all religions have a feminist branch and an anti-feminist branch. Nearly all religions have a racist branch and an anti-racist branch. Nearly all religions have an authoritarian branch and a liberal branch. This all applies to atheism as well. I'm a history major. When you read about history, you realize that most people are influenced by their political and economic situation more than anything else. Most people will do whatever they need to do to survive and then they will convince themselves that they are doing God's work. This is why converting people to a certain religion (or lack thereof) won't change much. Making political and economic changes should be our number one priority.

A lot of people think that religion is super-important. I can totally see why. After all, religion is all about what we will do for the rest of eternity after our earthy bodies can no longer house us. Despite all of this, all religions are mere opinions. Meanwhile, politics is a force that controls our lives and contains many hard facts that are being ignored. Thus, political changes are more important than religious changes.

Disagree.
Disagree.
Disagree.
Disagree.

1) agree


2) agree


3) okay.

I've posted sources in some of my other threads. You haven't even provided an explanation. Where is your argument?

Food For Thought: Imagine that a devout Christian is standing on some train tracks and the train is coming. Does he jump out of the way or does he stay on the train tracks? You tell me.

Most Christians, deep down, know that heaven is just an opinion, whereas trains definitely exist and definitely have the ability to kill human beings.

Legal wisdom ...

1. "Truths"/"Facts" are opinions
If you ever find yourself saying, "...something is true or factual ... " take a step back, and remember, "truths" and "facts" are only opinions based on a point of view. A "fact" in science would be a less-presumptuous "scientific fact", which indicates a point of view.

2. The truth to most questions is: "yes/no/maybe/it depends"
a. This is mostly due to imprecise wording of the question.
b. This is also due to the nature of reality being probabilistic.

3. "Truth" is unknowable
See Socrates: "All I know is I know nothing".

Yes, our reality runs on probability. Of course, some things have a 99% chance of being correct.

If you see something that has a 99% chance of being correct and you say "It hasn't been fully resolved." the average Joe is going to think "I guess the chances are 50/50 then!" When something is very likely correct, you generally have to speak with a sense of certainty in order to get your point across.

If we are going to speak to the masses, some truths regarding human nature must be acknowledged. The average person is never going to speak or think in E-Prime. People are always going to use the word "is".

We should send you to Israel DMK, I'm sure you can sort that s**t out in a week or two with your far-reaching insights.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is driven by greed.

The Israeli leaders and Palestinian leaders are both greedy.

A strategy to ease anger in religious arguments will not work, the whole concept is based on faith.

God bless your good intentions, Darth. And I say that without a trace of irony, intended or otherwise.

Here's some actual facts...

- No attempted argument for the existence of God is airtight.
- The evidence for the Jesus of the Gospels existing isn't airtight in the slightest (starting with how they, and much of the Bible, contradicts itself).
- No one in history (notable, at least) has killed or committed genocide in the name of atheism.

I don't understand why people even argue in about things that they believe in because of faith alone.

The purpose of an argument is to gain new information.

If you are unwilling to abandon a belief, it's best to keep it under your hat, so that you never hear the other side of the story. We argue about things that we believe in because of our observations. If you argue over something that feels very important to you, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Arguing over something that feels important to you is like betting your left leg in a poker game. If you didn't want someone to take your leg, you shouldn't have put it on the betting table.

I'm a Traditional Catholic, I'm currently not into debates at the moment, but here's my response these "facts."

The issue here comes down to whether a theory is innocent until proven guilty, or guilty until proven innocent. In regards to evolution, I'm sure many here have already argued with you on this point, don't worry, I won't, I'll just give my position on this issue, *Cue howls of outrage* I'm currently an agnostic when it comes to whether the theory of evolution is true or not.



The theologies of Gaia, Odin, and Atum do not work with the arguments for the existence of an Omnipotent Creator God, mainly because these three deities mentioned, are too anthropomorphic for the the Theistic arguments given. The Triune God of Israel however, conforms perfectly with the Theistic arguments given, some may argue that the God of Israel wasn't originally monotheistic, but that's a whole other topic for another time.



This is one of the reasons why my #1 goal in life is to be a Holy and Godly Saint. The reason the Catholic Church has been so successful in spreading the Gospel is because Catholics were willing to lay down their lives for it, regardless of whatever political or economic pressures they were facing. So my only response to this is to state my goal in life, sanctification, becoming a Saint.

Pardon me for appearing melodramatic but, my only economics is the Economy Salvation, (Well actually, the Catholic Church does have her own teachings about economics, which are basically small local business, and small local government. But I digress) and my only politics is the Sacred Heart of Christ the King, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary the Queen!

1) agree

2) agree

3) more, or less, agree.

One, and two.

Its pretty much proven that the earth is old, that geological gradualism explains how the the nonliving lithosphere of teh earth came to be, and the biological equivalent- evolution through natural selection- explains how the biosphere is how it is.

But certain junctures are hard to explain. What was before the Big Bang? If you wanna say "god" fine. And though evolution explains life once it got started its weak on explaining how life started from nonlife. So folks who said "god must have created the first cell" are making a reasonable assertion. But saying that "god created the first cell, and then life evolved for four billion years until a couple million years ago humans appeared" is quite different from saying "Genesis in the Bible is the literal truth".

Three

Hard to say. But in some realms religion seems to have little effect. In the USA both abolitionists and slave owners would cite scripture to argue their respective cases. But the same is true of secular philosophy. Both abolitionists and slave owners would also quote Thomas Jefferson to argue their cases as well.

(It's looking like even this thread will, ironically, devolve into an Angry Religious Debate.)

The problem isn't regarding the facts per se. 'Religion' is an enormously complicated concept that modern Internet-atheists don't even try to understand, and neither side takes the time to understand pre-existing arguments of the other side. The actual intellectual ideas from people who have spent years researching and understanding things are ignored, and instead both sides keep replying to strawman low-hanging weak arguments from Internet loudmouths of the other side.

It's happening because the people involved are not really interested in logically deducing the truth or falsehood of religions, and they're not trying to learn and make sense of its historical and societal roles either. What most people are doing is to use this as yet another "your tribe" vs "my tribe" conflict, and only want to "defeat" the other side.

The irony is that this very much reflects the religious conflicts of the past, which were also less because of the actual philosophical and metaphysical differences, and more because human tribal instincts want us to group together as tribes and fight other tribes.

Very broad generalization. True of a lot of meritless internet debates, but only partially true of atheists as a whole - otherwise, books such as The Skeptics Annotated Bible or anything from the so-called "Four Horseman of Atheism" would never be written and/or sell copies (let alone make best-seller lists).