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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (11338)	2/28/2002 12:46:06 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 28931

"But stronger and more validated beliefs come to those who have been compelled to question, doubt, search, and ultimately arrive at their own answer." I don't see how you could possibly know this. I don't even see how it really follows. I would think someone who was never tested might have the most unshakeable faith of all ("I was never tested because God loves me best of all", seems to be but one spin that could be put on that, among many others (a variant of the "I am rich because God wants me to be rich" school of thinking and so on)

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (11338)	2/28/2002 12:47:43 PM
From: Mitch Blevins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Good point, JC. I'll leave this with some questions from the "Meaning of Life FAQ". This is not directed at you, but anybody who feels like answering. Is my religion correct? What does it mean to belong to a religion? What are the preconditions? (Heredity, deliberate choice...) What are the consequences? (Superior moral stature, better treatment in the afterlife, good luck...) Are the consequences natural or divinely imposed? Shouldn't you be analyzing all these elements separately, instead of lumping them together under the category of "belonging to a religion"? Is belief important? Is logically justified belief better or worse than unsupported belief? Would an artificial intelligence programmed with the blank assertion get more brownie points than an AI programmed with a justification? Does the justification have to be correct? Is absolute certainty better than 95% certainty? What about emotional intensity? Is a fervent 95% belief better than a casual 100% belief? (We're fairly certain the sky is blue but we don't believe it very hard.) Is your belief supported by reasoning and evidence? Would you be willing to change your beliefs if you found the reasoning or evidence was wrong? Doesn't that cheapen your beliefs by turning you into a tape recorder, since you're doing nothing but parroting back what you were told as a child? or Doesn't that cheapen your beliefs by turning you into a pocket calculator, since you're just comparing two probabilities to find out which is bigger? The Universe is a really huge place, and there are very probably all kinds of interesting people in it. What is the correct religion for a race of sentient plants? What does your religion have in common with that religion? Are the other parts unimportant rituals or are they just as important as the universal truths? Does God have to be worshipped under a particular name? Isn't it odd that this symbol is a series of atmospheric vibrations in the human-audible range? The above sentient plants have no sense of hearing. They can't even think God's name. Are they going to Hell? Why did God create all the other religions, or permit their creation? If you started from scratch and wanted to find the correct religion by interviewing people from various faiths, would you ask people who'd been born into the religion, or converts? If I tell you that a person doesn't share their parents' religion, and nothing else about them, are they more or less likely to be rational than a random individual? Are they more or less likely to belong to your religion? Is that a statistical fact? What is the a-priori chance that a random human was born into the correct religion? What is the a-priori chance that you were born into the correct religion? Why are those two numbers different? You're just not willing to admit it, are you? If the previous questions strike you as a blasphemous attempt to shake your faith, would you remove them from the FAQ if you could? Bear in mind that most people visiting this page will belong to the wrong religion - isn't it a good thing if their faith gets shaken? sysopmind.com