Herein I store essentially disparate reference material for my main blog socialistdystopia.blogspot.com CONTENTS OF THIS 'COGNATE' BLOG MAY BE REGULARLY INDEXED OR COMMENTED UPON IN THE 'DYSTOPIA" BLOG, MAKING IT EASIER TO READ.
This site could have value for casual readers: certainly context / purpose may or may not be obvious.
#################### Geoff Seidner
@trevor It is the 'how' and the 'why'...both are important. And in both cases, it takes more 'faith' to be an atheist than to believe in a designer and creator.
Some believe that the world has always existed, some believe in a beginning which started with the so called “Big Bang”, and others believe that there is a God, who has always existed, who created this world. The last group are almost always derided for their belief in such a fairy tale deity by the first two groups, who at the same time fail to realise that they themselves also unwittingly believe in the supernatural, as they cannot logically explain how something can be created from nothing.
@Nick Not really. Acknowledging that not knowing how something happened is not the same as tacitly accepting that it proves the existing of gods. We don't know how dark matter works, if it works or even if it exists. Not knowing this does not equate to believing that the only rational explanation for dark matter is that there are gods.
@NickNot sure what your argument is based on Nick but if you are saying that there must be a first cause or prime mover to explain things in the universe then that involves the fallacy of composition: what is true of a member of a group is not necessarily true for the group as a whole. Just because most things within the universe require a cause or causes, does not mean that the universe itself requires a cause. If you are arguing that something cannot come out of nothing [but why not] and therefore the universe itself must have a creator then the simple response is in that case who or what created that creator: which is a variation on the same theme.
But it is not the case as you claim that anyone who says that the world has always existed or that those who argue for a Big Bang “unwittingly believe in the supernatural”. If the universe always existed then there is nothing supernatural about that existence. If it started with a Big Bang then there is no logical reason why that is supernatural rather than natural; nor is there a logical requirement to seek a cause outside the space and time that only came into existence with that same Big Bang. Existence is not a predicate.
Better just stick with faith as your reason for religious beliefs if you feel the psychological need for them.
You have fallen hook, line and sinker for "the fallacy of belief". That is the belief, held my most believers, like you and Mr Sheridan, that everone else has to "believe" in something. In your example, only the third group "believes" in something.
The first two groups, rather than "believing in" their respective hypotheses, have either advanced them or subscribe to them because they are crude, but reasoned attempts to explain the currently unknown , ie the existance of the universe. They may not be correct explanations of course, but unlike the third group, the first two groups can explain how their respective hypotheses could be proved and/ or disproved and their adherents would adjust their position when such evidence was forthcoming.
The third group simply believe the irrational. It is quite clearly irrational, and quite unhelpful, to advance the proposition "God created the world" AS AN EXPLANATION FOR THE WORLD'S EXISTENCE, without at the same time explaining who or what created God.
For those here who reject Gody that st the end of life you will face your maker weather you believe in him or not. You will then have eternity to lament your unbelief.
@Nick Nobody in relation to the Big Bang is saying that something has been created from nothing. It is impossible with our current knowledge to do anything other than to extrapolate back further in time to to a point when the universe was very hot and very dense. The universe has been expanding ever since and the evidence of the temperature of the early universe fits the current understanding of the background temperature of the universe at about 3° Kelvin i.e. the universe has cooled as it has expanded. There are many mysteries which will probably never be explained such as why there there is a predominance of matter over antimatter, and the relative mass or energy component of each subatomic particle.
However when one tries to reconcile this body of knowledge with the ramblings of an illiterate goatherd it is impossible to rationalise the goatherds ramblings other than abysmal ignorance which at the time was justified, but now is not.
Understanding the big being and the current state of knowledge has nothing to do with anything being supernatural, it is an extension of our knowledge base to the point at which we cannot explain things, but from that point back to where we do understand things now is a well documented body of scientific knowledge which the godbotherers is either do not understand or do not bother to try to understand.
Religious morality is an oxymoron. If you are doing something for reward, then you are not being moral, you are doing a job. If you are doing it to avoid punishment, that's just survival. The very thought that mankind needs religion to either scare people into behaving, or bribe people into being nice, otherwise, we would all be savages, is insulting, and degrading to humanity.
@Ross Is it possible to insult or degrade some supposedly meaningless, random matter that for no reason at all comes to life and crawls out of a primordial swamp?
Christine, re modern humanity, do you mean Like Isis, or the child rape in churches.
Is the bible or Koran a better source of morality?
Endorsing slavery, commanding tribal genocide, killing homosexuals, killing unruly children, treating women as chatel and not allowing them to lead men.
Garry, If we evolved naturally, we can still have empathy for fellow conscious beings and aim to reduce suffering and support a society where you get a fair go.
You don't need to invent gods to care about others.
Much human interaction with the real world is faith-based.
That's because as humans none of us has comprehensive knowledge.
For example, the scientific method works, but is inferential in character. One cannot prove the world is regular and orderly - that's an assumption, what we might call a position of trust. And so all science proceeds on the basis of faith.
@Tim Nice try at yet another worn out theist sleight of hand.
There are a series of reasonable assumptions which, if acted upon, make life liveable. We anticipate that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. It might not, of course. We assume that most airlines most of the time perform sufficient maintenance so we get on a plane. And so on so forth. It is rational to know that uncertainty involves risks that need to be managed on a daily basis.
This is not the same as 'faith' which is, literally, beyond reason.
Not one of this class of assumptions is analogous for the assumption that gods exist.
Belief in god with no evidence whatsoever, nil, nought, nothing, to support it, and a whole lot of killing, horror and crime in its name, is very sad and quite demented.
This is the most irrational, illogical, fallacious article I've seen for a while.
From the first paragraph, unsubstantiated assertions, fallacies, and misrepresenting atheism. Atheism is not monolithic, just as god beliefs and believers don't all hold identical beliefs.
While human beings naturally believe things this does not mean everything we believe is true.
In fact, logically, there are mutually contradictory god beliefs. They can't all be true. If the morons are right, everyone else is wrong. If the Muslims are right, Jesus isn't god.
Is Greg asserting our inner voice is a reliable source of truth? What nonsense. Our inner voices, our overactive agency assumption and lazy thinking, has given rise to beliefs in contradictory gods and goddesses, astrology, nature spirits, ancestor spirits, ghosts, demons, faerie, and any number of baseless beliefs. Is the inner that leads people to believe in shiva or Allah or Faeries or crystal healing or ghosts sufficient to make these beliefs true. Nonsense. The conflicting god beliefs can't even all be true.
There is too much irrational nonsense to unpack in his article as nearly every sentence has flawed logic. Yes 80% may believe in gods and goddesses. But they believe in conflicting god concepts. They can't all be correct. Truth is not determinied by popularity. If a majority believed the earth was the centre of the universe and the sun revolved around it, that doesn't make it true.
Greg you are an atheist in regards to all the non Christian gods and goddesses others believe. Presumably you don't think there is sufficient evidence or reason to believe in Zeus, or shiva or the Muslim god, or the Jewish god, or Mormon god, or the Jehovah's Witness god, or the supernatural and religious claims in other religious traditions. We are just more consistent and go one more.
There could be gods and goddesses, crystal healing, nature spirits. There could a billion invisible spirits inside my iPad. There could be winged horses and talking donkeys and servants. But until there is sufficient evidence or reason to belief in the billions of conflicting supernatural claims, we should logically suspend belief.
@Obeyno1 Well said. Greg's faith based stream of consciousness essay remains unconvincing when subjected to any test of logic. Religious belief serves as a psychological balm for people's uncertainties and anxieties but can (and has) lead to great harm and evil.
I do not agree with Lenin on anything except his description of religion as "opiate of the masses".
"There is too much irrational nonsense to unpack in his article as nearly every sentence has flawed logic"
You are 100% correct. I wanted to say this 6 hours ago, but I though I would be censored by the moderators.
I am truly, gobsmackingly staggered that a man whose reasoning is no obviously deficient and has such difficulty grasping even the most basic principles of logic has the gall to comment on serious matters such as foreign policy and defence. That is a real worry, although some intelligent and well educated people ofen only suspend in matters of faith and religion the logic they successfully apply elsewhere.
Mr Sheridan, may I respectfully reccommend a book to you? "The Elements of Logic" by Stephen F Barker. It was popular as a first year philosophy text book when I was at Uni in the '70's.
If you could just comprehend section 1 of chapter one, then I think your writing would be much more convincing.
However, what encourages me enormously is how many hundreds of commentors to this article HAVE grasped these fallacies. I honestly do not believe this would have been the case 30 years ago, so we must have being doing SOMETHING right in education. Maybe all is not lost afterall!
I am a fairly right wing conservative, by the way.
Nothing written here changes my mind --- Never has been a 'God' and you can't prove he/she/they/it has ever existed. Yes you have faith that he/she/they/it exists and which is your right and I support your right to believe in whatever you wish. But don't impose that belief on me - and don't try and imply that I am a lesser person than you for MY belief of he/she/they/its non-existence.
@Stephen There is nothing to prove, nor should it have to be proven. You either believe in a force greater than yourself, or you don't. That's why it's called FAITH.
I dont believe in much simply observing and weighing the odds whether something is true or not. Does this make me a failed atheist and failed god believer both? I hate it when I am accused of being a believer in atheism because atheism is a state of non belief. I neither believe nor do I not. The rise in belief systems that are blinkered in things like politics and alternative medicine are a bane on modern life and bring us a return of once feared diseases and threats of war. True believers are a thing to be feared and avoided by me and now that Greg Sheridan has convinced me even more that he cannot be trusted to report the whole truth, I must put him aside.
@evan Evan, everyone is entitled to one little foible and given that this particular foible of Greg Sheridan consists of nothing more or less than an imaginary friend, it's pretty harmless and not really enough to distract from the sharp insight he brings to most foreign affairs subjects.
And when Darwin proposed that evolution can be traced back to that original single cell, he was asked where the cell came from and he replied “From the creator”. It’s hard to be an atheist, as I am, and not deny that the odds of that cell surviving long enough in a hostile environment are near-impossible. A bet each way might be the most rational position.
@Gil One of Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore (I can't remember which) expressed your sentiment very well in reciting their favourite prayer: "Hello god, if you are there, hear my prayer and if not, forget all about it!"
@Gil One of the many, many, justifications that Greg used above was "It’s highly improbable statistically" in reference to how evolutionally receptive our planet is.
As for the evolutionary side, we really don't have anything to compare with, but from a statistical point of view there are around a 1000 Billion Trillion stars in the universe so I would have thought it to be highly "probable" statistically that there are other planets just like ours.
So listen to your atheistic "inner voice" and put all your money on a win for science and reason.
Trevor, following his poor reasoning anything he considers improbable may be due to a supernatural agency. Every lottery winner could be due to gods. The infinitesimal probability that you that my iPad contains the particular atoms it does could be due to gods.
@Obeyno1 It is either one way or the other, all God or No God, if it is the former then "everything" must be Gods doing, if you have the power to create the universe, then surely you have the power to stop the little kid getting run over in the street?
The best example of religious mental gymnastics is the obvious collapse in Christian values by people on these forums the moment you mention Refugees, at which time "The Inn is full" is the selfishly default position. Of course, the notion that religion represents some greater truth is mocked by the fact for the vast and over bearing majority their particular brand of myth and fantasy is determined by location and parental upbringing not some divine revelation.
@Rob Exactly. Render unto God which is God's and unto Caeser etc or some such. In other words, separation of church and state, which includes affairs of the world vs affairs of the spirit. Doesn't mean the spirit should not inform the world, but should not rule it either. Open door policy leads to excessive local suffering, total closed door leads to turning a blind eye to offshore suffering - hence the generous but controlled Aus immigration policy. QED
Isn't it funny, but what really strikes me is the opposite. We have the secular left hounding Christians to keep their faith out of the lives of others. Then an issue like border security comes up, and the atheists charge that we need to be more Christian.
@Russ Unfortunately, the definition of "refugee" has been bastardised for political point scoring in Australia and fails to ignite the compassion it used to. Notice when it became useless to pay to get a boat here, then the refugees stopped.
About six years ago Tony Abbott (a Christian) pleaded with Obama (a Christian) to send planes to help the Christians being persecuted in Northern Syria. We had a moral obligation to help those people but almost every Western "leader" at the time didn't want to upset any Muslims. As if you can do such a thing. Afterall, ISIS has such a highly tuned sense of justice. Predictably, Saint Obama did what he always did - nothing. Imagine taking advice from a right wing white man, not a good look, no matter how many it saved. As a result of this failure of leadership thousands died and it could be argued the march of ISIS killed tens of thousands more.
None other than the Dalai Lama has been vocal in his criticism of the mostly able-bodied young men who make up the bulk of "refugees" entering Europe via Libya and Greece. Many are fleeing Africa not wartorn ME btw. At any rate, he implored them to return and fight for their homelands, protect the vulnerable and rebuild their countries and lives. But then again, he's always been an inhumane, nasty piece of work.
@Russ Always bearing in mind that the majority of so-called refugees are in fact criminals - once for bribery and once for entering a country illegally. Sad that this makes it tough for legitimate refugees.
@dominic@Russ Christianity does not have any claim to any moral high ground when it comes to helping others, their help has always been conditional on towing the Christian line.
@trevor@dominic@Russ So all the many Christian charities from the Salvos to Vinnies to Anglicare only help those who believe the Christian dogma. You are quite patently prejudiced, ignorant and wrong.
Sorry Joanne that is such a mishmash of half truths and outright non facts it is difficult to know were to begin. In actual fact Abbott refuse to raise the refugee intake to allow more Christians to be accommodated:
"The Abbott Government wants to restrict any intake of Syrian refugees to minorities which are largely Christian, as passions run high in the Coalition over the way Australia should handle the crisis in Syria.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is under increasing pressure to increase the refugee intake but has put off a decision while Australia consults with the United Nations about the best approach."
I have a different view about the coin and Caeser's image:
"The coin bore the image and inscription of Caesar. Genesis teaches us that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. Our Lord is saying, 'Let the political and financial authorities have their coinage, It is their legal tender. But they cannot have human beings. Human beings belong to Another. They belong to God.
We are fortunate to live in a wonderful democracy. But even a democracy can violate the dignity of a human being created in the image and likeness of God. As Pope John Paul II said: 'Authentic democracy is possible only in a state ruled by law, and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person,'" [Michael Tate]
Jesus Christ engaged in the poltical and nowhere is this strongest than when Pilate asked of Jesus - "What is truth" - we are not beholden to the State. As Christians we are called to be involved in politics not separated from it.
The current State's concept of the human person is going off the rails. n
@Russ@Joanne Don't know why I bother. It's always some sanctimonious insult. What on earth is a "non fact". I know that whenever some discourse on Christianity appears in The Oz you raise to the bait very easily with your blantant anti-Christian prejudice shining proudly for all to see. We get it Ross. You hate Christians and clergy and cannot bring yourself to admit that some of its adherents might be just as clever as you and maybe even better people. That Christianity has served society well overall. Maybe you have had a bad personal experience and your prejudice is understandable but that doesn't make it right. None of what I said has been rebutted by your unattributed "quotes". I never said Abbott wanted to allow Muslim refugees from Syria. He didn't. That would have been charitable to Syrian Muslims but a far from prudent risk considering his first concern would be his fellow Australians then, possibly, fellow Christians who had lived in that part of Syria for thousands of years and were being persecuted and killed by, you guessed it, Muslims, who we were at war with.
I suggest googling Catholic Care Vic au and look at the help the Catholic Church is providing to refugees often with no help from Government. There is no requirement for Muslims to convert to Christianity. There is no towing the Christian line just as there isn't for others the Catholic Church helps.
The Catholic Church is the world's largest private provider of charity in areas of clothing, food, schooling, healthcare and refugees. n
Well Greg, it's obvious that you are being read by a majority whose minds are made up. Not for these, the possibilty that they are wrong.
I challenge all of you to do your own investigation. Check out Creation Ministries International website and you will find scientific evidence for a designer. There is such complexity in a single cell that no other explanation makes sense. It takes more faith to believe everything came from nothing!
Prove there is no God!
By the way, there is a lot of evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ if one cares to check it out least of all the date even if its out by 3 years.
In educated societies there are far more believers who have become atheistic than atheists who become believers. Once you go down the road of logic and reason it is very difficult to turn back - even with the incentive of everlasting life lingering in the shadows.
@Iain T Creation Ministries? Lord help us. The world is 6000 years old and science is explained by Ray 'the banana man' Comfort. Google him if anyone has the stomach, Or alternatively, if anyone wants a good laugh to start the day.
I'll change my position if there was compelling evidence for a particular god or goddess concept.
Until then I won't plug gaps in our understanding with a god or rely on inner voices that some individuals rely to believe in all sorts of contradictory and unsubstantiated supernatural beliefs.
@Tom S@Iain T It does seem that many people are running away from logic and reason. The reasoning in most arguments about same sex, climate change, blame all seem in small quantities. Many of us jump on a bandwagon and assume that this is all the proof we need.Looking outside the square seems to be an 'in' idea. How about looking outside the bandwagon?
Not believing in gods is a position on a single issue. Clearly not a religion. You can be an atheist and disagree on every other issue. Atheists can believe in an afterlife, ghosts, nature spirits, astrology, a lucky rabbits foot, a flat earth just no gods. Hardly a religion.
I don't think atheists are as rational and logical as they think they are and I'm talking as an ex atheist. Pretty much all of the atheists I have had discussions with put forth very lame, facile and spiritually uneducated arguments for the non existence of God.
I live a happy life with my wife , kids , and grandkids and I don't need porn to get me interested in making love with my wife. If I'm wrong about this God business then I've lost nothing. If the atheist is wrong about God, he/she has lost everything.
But not Pascal's wager please. The probability is not 0.5. The more alternative gods and goddesses and the list is very very long, the less likely you are to win your bet. And the greater the chance of picking the wrong God and losing very badly and who will punish your for your choice.
Go with the evidence instead and there is no evidence, or even plausible argument, for your or Pascal's god.
Peter, I'd acknowledge there are bad reasons to take an atheistic position and good reasons.
Your supernatural beliefs might help you in your life, just like another people might find belief in other religions might help them. Doesn't make any of them true.
I'd just suggest it's better to believe in more true things than false things. Particularly when not all religious and cultural practices are benign.
@Peter. What??????? I am an atheist and am still one at 65. But, Peter, I have never met, talked to or read the work of ANY athiest who tried to put forward any argument for the non existant of God. Why? Because the existance of God cannot be proved or disproved given (a) the refusal of believers to define God in a way that allows proof of his/her/its existance or nonexistance. And (b) the state of our knowledge about the universe is not adequate.
What atheists actually do is attempt to rebutt arguments FOR the existance of God.
But, Peter, I think I can resolve your connundrum. You cannot be an ex-atheist because you were not an atheist in the first place. And your final sentence is just plain stupid, but hard to rebut because it has no clear meaning. When you say "if an atheist is wrong about God" I think what you mean is that If the existence of God were to be irrefutably, logically and scientifically proven. Now, were this to happen, your atheist would not be "wrong" if they formerly refused to believe something that could at the time not be proven, but the in the face of proof accepted it as fact. I myself would be deleriously happy and would have lost nothing at all.
Your fallacy is simple one. You, like every commentor here who criticises athiests, have failed to grasp one simple fact - an athiest does not "believe there is no god" and does not try to prove there is no god. That would be irrational. On the contrary, an atheist does not believe there is a god, until there is proof. That is fully rational. I don't think you can see the difference, which is why I suggest you were never really an atheist.
It's unbearable to read your commentary on Saint Thomas Aquinas given your howler of an article on SSM suggesting that the great saint would support such a concept.
Shame on you!
Until you retract your article and direct readers to what TA says on the subject it is best to leave him be. An apology to readers for misrepresenting his works would also be a good idea.
LIkewise to suggest to other Catholics that it is alright to vote for SSM on a faith basis is also a disgrace.
Because God talks to you Kate? Here is a tip IF there was such a thing as God, she would be too busy with rest of the universe to care if two people fell in love and wanted to get married. She would leave that to petty and bitter.
Well you should probably declare you inherent and obvious bias Greg. You are a committed and devout Catholic, so no surprises here, not much logic either.
Love the casual uni bashing (nothing more straight and narrow in this country than an IPA report). One of the most insightful subjects I took at Melbourne university was God and the Natural Sciences, run by both an atheist and Anglican priest (feel free to give it a casual google search).
Interesting topic, but basic arguments. I have faith I am the son of my parents without empirical evidence? I have faith my car will turn on without knowing what makes it so? How backwards.... you have the potential to move onwards but you choose not to. Nothing honorable about that. Western civilisation doesn't rest on the knowledge of God, it rests on the why and how, thats what keeps things moving. The same can be said of religion, but people like you run as an antithesis to progress, both in our physical and spiritual world.
Mr Sheridan's idea that he only has faith that he is the son of his parents suggests there are no facts just faith. That he is the son of his mother is a fact and these days it can be established beyond any doubt he is the son of his father and therefore this is also a fact.The adoption of Mr Sheridan's logic or semantics explains how climate change has become a religion rather than a science.
@David I once diagnosed a patient who had two fathers. The zygotes/morulae collided and formed one boy. So you cant assume that Sheridan had only one father. The mother would know if this is possible, but my experience with paternity tests tells me she wouldnt be volunteering this information. Which keeps paternity testers in a job. And sometimes mothers are given the wrong baby to take home. Finally, paternity tests can be in error.
@Peter@David Bad argument Peter. There is empirical evidence such as a birth certificate and reliable testimony from family and friends. No faith required for the very reasonable inference that he is, as a contingent matter of fact, his parents' son. If he doesn't accept all that reasonable empirical evidence faith won't solve the problem but a DNA test would.
@THOMAS@David But presumably THOMAS there was only one mother? And in any case he did say 'his parents' son' so if there were multiple parents you could diagnose that?
@Richard@THOMAS@David There is a famous Australian play about two cane cutters from Mackay, who cut cane from May to December and blew their money on their Kings Cross mistresses from December to May called "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll". In it John Mills tells a naieve young widow Angela Lansbury that he had twins with two mothers. Angela says - how can that be? and John says "Well two girls were born to two of my girlfriends on the same day, and the mothers both said they were mine, so they must be twins".
Possibly the strongest evidence of a God has been the ongoing belief in many Gods. It was the Jewish religion that gave us the concept of one God.
However there have been the sex gods, the sun gods etc. Atheism as espoused by Dawkins has its own god, the science god. Today we have the green god or climate change god. The point is people have and continue to believe in something that requires some faith, despite some protestations to the contrary.
With the decline in belief of the one God, it is not suprising that belief in other gods has again increased as people search for "the truth" or a greater understanding of being itself.
Some of the comments below are either exilliarating or unfortunate. It is amazing that many people still have nothing more than a16th century understanding of religion or the one God. There again when we have so little religious education these days, it is not surprising.
@Stuart yes the immature and undeveloped views surprise me too. Cast one belief as a fairy tale i.e. bearded man in sky etc. While with no sense of irony referring to the evolution and a big bang (which is a pretty fantastical explanation).
My understanding is one pharaoh introduced the concept of one god before Judaism.
No one believed in other galaxies 500 years ago. Is that the strongest evidence there are no other galaxies. When everyone thought the earth was flat was that the strongest evidence the earth was flat. When everyone believes disease and earthquakes were causes by supernatural agents was this strong evidence for angry gods?
If non belief in gods or Islam increased to an overwhelming majority would this be strong evidence that these positions are correct.
With respect, this is not a good argument for anything.
Stuart, if you need faith then you don't have a good reason to believe.
Faith in Scientology. Faith in Islam. Faith in shiva. Faith in Mormonism. Faith in homeopathy. Faith in crystal healing. Is that good reason to believe in any of these?
@Sean@Stuart My cat has noticed that different windows catch the sun's light and warmth at different times of the day and has therefore developed an ongoing belief that a new sun appears in the morning and then disappears at night. This is therefore strong evidence that the sun moves around the earth.
Complete disrespect of non-believers.
where's your proof?