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Surveys like this need to be very careful how they ask the questions. In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow the psychologist Daniel Kahneman tells of a study he did where they wanted to find out if there is a correlation between how satisfied someone is with their finances and how happy they are.
He found that if you ask them the following two questions:
"rate from 1-10 how satisfied you are with your financial situation"
"rate from 1-10 how happy you are overall"
then you get a very high correlation. However if you ask these questions:
"rate from 1-10 how happy you are overall"
"rate from 1-10 how satisfied you are with your financial situation"
then you get a very low correlation - same questions, different order. You can replace "financial situation", with "sex life", "family life", "relationships", "work" or pretty much any other aspect of life and you get the same result.
This is an example of the availability heuristic. By asking the specific question first people can easily bring to mind examples of their financial situation (or sex life etc) and have a good idea how happy they are with it. When they are asked the second question, this is much more vague and harder to come up with concrete examples, so their brain takes a short cut and uses the examples that they had already come up with in the previous question.
When someone is asked the "how happy overall?" question first they will use whatever is uppermost on their mind - they could give completely different answers depending on if they were most recently thinking about their money worries or the fantastic fuck they had last night.
EDIT: I highly recommend the book to anyone who is even slightly interested in how the mind works and how it often gets things wrong.
I echo Oktaa on /r/exmuslim. They are generally more knowledgeable about Islam.
That said, here are some books I have read and enjoyed with view that contradict the Orthodox Muslim stance. I don't argue they are all always correct in their interpretations of the evidence, but there is evidence to look at.
The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran suggests the original Quran was a Christian work.
The Hidden Origins of Islam presents many artifacts (coins, inscriptions) from the time of the origin of Islam. There is a lot of Christianity on coins when Muhammad was supposed to be in charge, strange.
- The God Delusion
- God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens
- Why I Am Not a Christian, by Bertrand Russell
I cannot recommend Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark enough. Some parts of it may be a bit dated, but the chapter entitled "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection" is timeless and it may be exactly what you're looking for.
If I was going to give him a book, I wouldn't pick a book on atheism. I would pick a book that someone might read while they still call themselves Christian but are beginning to question their faith.
Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman would be a good choice. It's written by a biblical scholar who used to be a Christian fundamentalist who lost his faith as he studied the origins of the Bible.
Read The Closing of the Western Mind. Jesus's early followers never believed in the virgin birth or that he was the son of god. Basically Paul determined to turn Jesus into the son of god in order to get people to follow.
I define "theism" to be "belief in the existence of a god or gods" (as does OED). I consider "deism" to be "belief in a God who created the universe, but no longer intervenes" and "pantheism" to be something like "belief that the universe is a manifestation of God." Therefore I would consider both deism and pantheism to be subsets of theism.
I feel your pain. However, I think I'll try to stay and at least try to make a difference.
The first step is ending the Gerrymandering, like California did. Then we'll at least have a chance to actually influence the system. The Texas curriculum is an important battleground. If the opposition leaves, the entrenched win by default.
Don't give him Dawkins or Hitchens. The Christian apologists have books to counter the New Atheists' books.
I'd actually suggest something like When Jesus Became God. It has absolutely nothing to do with atheism, but really lays bare that Christianity was originally a political weapon, not a religion. When asked why that particular book, point out that it's 2018 and Bronze Age religions have no place in the modern world. There is nothing divine about the religion as it exists today. It was designed (I use that word intentionally) by a bunch of politicians as a political weapon and only the patina of time hides the ugly truth of Christianity's origins.
According to Bible scholar Joel Hoffman, the English translation of "virgin" is WRONG. In ancient Hebrew, the word for virgin is used to describe any teenage girl, like we would say "school girl" regardless of whether the girl is actually still in school.
There was also the episode where had the crayon dislodged from his brain, became above-average intelligent and accidetally, mathematically proved that God doesn't exist.
Ned Flanders' reaction is priceless: http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=54l4x8x&
The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True
I don't know which age groups it's for.
Alternatively you can give them books about lots of different myths and legends. Greek mythology is great.
Another interesting way of responding is with wronger than wrong. Just because we don't know something, doesn't mean all explanations are equally valid. Asimov puts it this way: "When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
I'm an atheist dad. Let me start by saying that I don’t know too many atheists who are concerned that their kids don’t believe in god. Most of us are way more concerned about teaching them how to think, not what to think. When our son was your son’s age, we gave him children’s books that taught critical thinking. Stuff like Dan Barker’s Maybe Yes, Maybe No.
That said, there are some religious beliefs that are directly harmful, and need to be addressed immediately. In my son’s case it was the fear of hell. He had some friends that were being raised in Cristian homes. So, of course, he was exposed to Christian concepts. He knew (as well as a ten-year-old can) that we were committed to raising him to arrive at his own beliefs. But he was genuinely scared. I thought it was important to show him that his fears of hell were unfounded. I asked him if he was scared of the Islamic hell. He said no. I asked him if he was worried that he might get reincarnated as a bug after he died (many of his friends are Hindu). He chuckled and said no. After a bit he got it.
> Google and Facebook have algorithms that only show you things you "liked" before. So everyone's search results are tailored to keep you in a information bubble. Even you and I.
Not everyone's search results. Maybe yours, but not mine.
Here are many more quotes from that wonderful book, including OP's favorite. My own is this:
> There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point... The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it.
Check out Behave by Robert Sapolsky. It is an excellent read and a great treatise on why genetic make up is not by itself a determinant of a person's characteristics but is dependent on the environment of the being as well.
Just to expand on #3, there is a small movement to end the practice of hand shaking: Michael Arrington, formerly of Techcrunch.
You could always claim this is your reason not to shake hands, but to pull it off, you'd have to apply this equally to everyone, men and women; superiors, peers, and subordinates. If it helps, you can say you're equally concerned about spreading germs you have.
More broadly on this point, your religion demands you restrict how you interact with women. This potentially comes in conflict with Western society's demand that you treat both genders with equal dignity and respect. The only way to reconcile the two demands is to apply the same restriction to your interaction with men.
Also, if I were your employer, and I saw you shaking men's hands but not women's, I'd be concerned I could get in trouble for allowing for a discriminatory workplace.
Well my stance for being pro-life is simply viewing the fetus as a human life and valuing life over the right to terminate it. Let me just quickly summarize my viewpoints:
- Fetuses are genetically identical to humans (and are thus scientifically considered human lives)
- I'd like to argue a sort of "expected value" of a human life as the probability of growing to someone of 10 years age. From this, a conceived fetus has a high probability of being born if left alone and should be considered an unborn child for that reason. I don't see how you can say the state has no right to dictate the outcome of pregnancy when the state makes myriad policies on fair and equitable treatment of newborns.
- In cases of no consent (such as rape) I am pro-choice, simply because it wouldn't really be fair as the woman had no part in the decision to create the baby. In cases of consensual sex, however, I strongly disagree with the termination of the fetus (this is the most common case of abortion, over 90% of cases IIRC). The couple specifically chose to have sex, knowing the potential consequences, and now there is a growing fetus. I don't see why a human life needs to be killed simply because of the irresponsibility of the parents.
- As for the comments on it being a women's rights issue, I don't entirely agree with that either. I mean, would it be a woman's rights issue to outlaw the killing of birthed babies? I'd be interested to hear someone's rationale on the difference between abortion and "post-birth abortion". To me they seem to be basically the same thing.
Here's a link that summarizes many of my views (it's a secular pro-life group that I discovered through a booth at the Reason Rally) https://sites.google.com/site/roeflip/
Daniel Dennett covers this in his book Breaking the Spell and Michael Shermer talked about this in his book The Believing Brain. This also somewhat covered in Kahneman's book Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Patternicity and agency detection are at the core of human evolution.
And as many are likely to point out, the way I think about something, or the way I "see" something has nothing to do with how it actually is.
Piggy backing on what /u/evannever said: Most Pakistani's are unaware of the difference between a drone and regular aircraft. People in the FATA region generally lump the two together. The data for drone attacks gathered from people who can't identify a UAV vs. a normal aircraft will significantly skew the statistics.
Here is the Amazon link! Like I said, this is the best comprehensive New Testament text book I have come across in my study and research as a budding scholar of religion.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Historical-Introduction-Christian/dp/0199757534
I had a similar thought the other day upon seeing an article that discusses just how many physical constants you need to describe the universe:
There are two particularly interesting points made here. First is that there are 26 different physical constants in current theory, which is an awful lot. These are things you can't derive, and just have to measure. The second thing is that nobody currently has any idea where they come from, and whether they're truly independent or ultimately derive from something simpler.
It could be that these constants are essentially arbitrary, or it could be that they all ultimately come from a single number with an obvious value, like 1, in some way that nobody has come close to figuring out yet. Until anyone has any idea about the potential for variation, it's meaningless to talk about fine tuning.
I really enjoyed <em>Letter to a Christian Nation</em> by Sam Harris. I have known, or felt, that there was no god(s) since I was 14. This book helped me organize my thoughts.
Upon further research, I found this very long but informative article about ritual purity as it pertains to religions. I would recommend anybody interested in this topic to read it.
Well, this is part of the problem.
Does holding signs really do any measurable good?
- Suppose that ignorant people believe that holding signs accomplishes something worthwhile.
- Suppose that intelligent, perceptive people believe that holding signs doesn't accomplish anything worthwhile and is not worth bothering with.
Then we're not going to see very many intelligent, perceptive people holding signs.
And I think that this holds true for many other rhetorical methodologies:
Intelligent, perceptive people tend to think:
"I don't think that doing A is really going to be worth the effort. I don't think that doing B is really going to be worth the effort. I don't think that doing C is really going to be worth the effort."
Bertrand Russell:
>The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world
>the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
It sounds to me like you aren't Christian and are struggling to admit it to yourself but also feel a need to believe in a higher being which you will not find in Atheism. Why not do some research on other religions/beliefs? You may find something that fits your moral compass better. Or even just become Agnostic and set your own path.
I'm an Atheist personally but I did a lot of research in religions/beliefs I think you might be interested in the modern pagan religions which better match your values. I know some of them have been vilified by Christianity but I wouldn't judge them until you've looked into it yourself. Questioning things and doing research does not make you evil or go to hell.
For example, despite what Christianity might say, Witchcraft has a great set of beliefs about taking responsibility towards yourself, others, and the world. I recommend the Kate West books, they're a good starting point.
To be honest, I'd like to see the literature for some of your statements (especially fragmentation after reaching a certain size). IIRC, I've seen some anthropologists claim early societies were fission-fussion societies.
Anyway, your main point of religion providing a certain glue that increase the cohesion of societies is a wide-spread idea among social scientists. Ara Norenzayan's "Big gods" is the best discussion of the evidence I know.
Unfortunately, a recent meta-analysis revealed that one crucial premise in Norenzayan's argument might have been a false positive, namely the idea that people behave better when believing they are watched by a supernatural being.
There's more that counts against the idea. I remain skeptical.
I see mutation as far too slow to find useful gene/protein variants. HIV took a population of 10^20 to evolve a gene duplication + a few new binding cites, malaria 10^20 before finding the right two nucleotides to flip to gain chloroquine resistance, and all other examples among microbes are as slow or slower. When even relatively small proteins such as beta-lactamase (153aa) exists in a sparse landscape where less than one out of 10^64 random sequences of aa's will folding proteins, it's expected that multiple mutations without a gain in fitness will be required to convert one to another--requiring trying innumerable bad combinations before finding something good.
Yet since a chimp divergence, in millions of times fewer mutations and population members, we would have had to evolve something like 280-1400 new genes/proteins among dozens of families through duplications, fusions, de novo from non coding DNA, and some without homologs at all. A million times less search but a thousand times the result. By any reasonable benchmark, evolution is over a billion times too slow to have created us.
Sources for these numbers from my notes.
Here you go: Elements of Logic by His Eminence Cardinal Mercier. This book comes complete with a Nihil Obstat and an Imprimatur, which are two of the seals of approval the Catholic Church gives to books. You can also get a printed copy from Amazon. The cheapest is this one.
I'd start with Plato (Gorgias, Republic), Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics), and Marcus Aurelius (Meditations).
These are philosophical works, but I'm not recommending them in terms of forming a comprehensive view of moral philosophy qua philosophy. I'm recommending them because they're readable, profound, and had a big impact on my own ethical life. Even if you strongly disagree with the ideas you find, it will give you much to think about.
>religion means "to reconnect, to bind"
That's the etymological origin of the word.
That's not what the word means now.
We don't say "The kidnappers religioned the wires of the intercom system and religioned the hostages."
---
(Also, here says that that's not actually the origin of the word - and the alternatives here aren't any better for your case. - http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=religion&searchmode=none )
The book you're looking for is "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why"
I'm about 70% though it and it's been a great read. It's thick reading, but super interesting.
http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512
Free (legal?) ebook links here: https://archive.org/details/Prof.BartEhrman-MisquotingJesus
Not necessarily relevant to the point of the question, but a useful distinction, I think: The word "militant," when describing the relative aggressiveness of the assertion of one's beliefs, isn't very useful. Militant, in my mind, should mean one who is willing to use violence generally or military methodology specifically. This doesn't apply very well most of the time people use the word militant as you have here. There are already words that mean aggressive assertions, like radical and zealous, and they don't necessarily imply violence. So when people say "militant" to mean anything other than "violent assertion of belief" it's basically saying the opposite of (or at least something other than) what they really mean. However, as with the comparison between the phrases "Could care less" vs "Couldn't care less" the understood connotation of the phrase matches the intended denotation most of the time, so YMMV.
Anyway.
No, most of the christian faith that I have experienced has been either subtle or not-so-subtle presumptions of my faith on their part, (eg. starting conversations with "what church do you go to") or indoctrination of the helpless or easily influenced. The former is pretty subtle and is only a result of the majority influence of christians in America; pretty much benign, except as a matter of microaggression. The latter is much more obvious, much more sinister, and much more common. Most of the "debates" I've ever had with christians involve them taking turns preaching at me, and ignoring my points and waiting for their next opportunity to preach. Rinse, repeat until I'm sick of wasting my breath. The craziest thing I've ever seen from a christian would be this guy's manifesto.
Take it from a biologist, most people with such ideas will never be convinced no matter how well versed you are.
When people ask this question, my usual response is "well why shouldn't there still be monkeys?" Humans share a common ancestor with modern apes. This could mean that 1. There was an ancient ancestral species that split and developed to become modern humans and apes, and that species is now extinct 2. There was a species on track to become modern day apes, and humans branched off. To help put it in perspective, here's a couple examples: we know that white Americans and white Australians are both descended from Europeans, so how come there are still Europeans? If dogs are domesticated wolves, how come there are still wolves? Or if you feel like being a smart-alec, if God created man from dust on the ground, then why is there still dust on the ground?
But if you really do want to learn more about it, there are plenty of resources on the internet from articles to youtube videos. If you want a good structured course (for free!) try https://www.coursera.org/ They have one course going on now on genetics and evolution, I don't know if you would still be able to join this late. But I'd be happy to answer any other specific questions you might have.
I think it would help you both to recognise that there are two definitions of belief that satisfy either of your positions. from here: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/belief
1 An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.
Under this definition of the word belief, Atheism is not a belief, nor would any other assertion of something not existing or being false be a belief.
- (belief in) Trust, faith, or confidence in (someone or something):
This is belief in the context of personal certainty.
Atheism itself is not a belief, however someone can have a belief that atheism is correct when it comes to stances on theism.
So in a way you are both right, but mindone, it seems you are over-extending the personal term belief to encompass the first definition too it seems.
If this is the whole book then it is in fact not in there. I searched for 'god' in case it's worded slightly different but found nothing resembling the quote. Neither did I find anything in the essay with the same name.
As a side note, reading his thoughts on God made me realize that I really do not agree with Einstein's pantheism. I'm studying physics (nearly done with my master) because I wanted to know how the world works but I agree more with Lovecraft in that at least some parts of the universe are actively trying to kill us all.
My understanding of physics is more like
> Discover rules then systematically exploit them.
For real. And no religion has a monopoly on ethics, even though many of them think that they do.
I was raised with Buddhist moral values, and when I was a kid, our family would rescue injured animals (e.g., pigeons), nurse them back to health, and rerelease them into the wild. I don't believe the supernatural tenets of my family's beliefs, but I would definitely still rescue an injured animal.
For a good secular read, I recommend Peter Singer's Practical Ethics. https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Ethics-Peter-Singer/dp/0521707684
>As someone who went from being an atheist for ~5 years to trying to get back into religion, I think that a lot of tasks are easier once you can get back into believing in a higher power. I would recommend the book "The Power of Habit" as it touches on the subject in a very scientific way; it's not the religious dogma and belief in an afterlife that helps, but rather having to admit your own powerlessness and having to constantly humble yourself that helps people get over addiction through religion.
That's a quote from you from another sub.
Seems like all you really want is an authority figure in your life. That what's true is secondary to submission.
Wow, this stuff has seriously been ground down into dust for a long time.
Read Robert Ingersol's books "Some Mistakes of Moses". Go to page 102 and read from there.
Or better yet, just read the whole thing. It's a great book and an easy read.
Consider this. There are two accounts of the "creation" in the bible. Man is created on different days and in a different order in the two stories. Are they saying that in one of those stories, that man came a millennium before animals? Or that plants went an equally absurd amount of time with no sunlight?
Seriously, go read Ingersol. You'll have a good time of it.
> As definitions can vary for a single word, "atheism is a denial that any god exists" is by no means an invalid definition.
It is indeed invalid if it is the only part of the definition given. For example, Websters definition has two parts:
a. a disbelief in the existence of deity
b. the doctrine that there is no deity
Even though many atheists do not fit under part b of this definition it is still valid since all atheists are at least covered by part a.
IMO Oxford has a better definition: "Disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods". This clearly describes the one characteristic that all atheists have in common.
> Many philosophy books give that as the definition of atheism.
Well then those books are simply wrong since "atheism is a denial that any god exists" does not in fact actually describe most atheists. Perhaps more authors of philosophy books should read the Oxford dictionary definition, or perhaps just ask an atheist.
The primary definition in any dictionary for agnostic is the noun form and means:
>a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
That is, they cannot say either I believe there is a God nor I believe there is no God.
You're using the adjective form of agnostic, and not even the primary adjective definition. You can use the adjective form if you like, but it does not mean that true Agnostics (a noun because they are people) don't exist.
Steven Pinker touches on his views in this article I came across the other day.
TL;DR He understands the difficulty of setting an abortion cut-off, but is pro-choice and thinks the viability cut-off is about right.
We got a Hell, Michigan.
"Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." ~ Carl Sagan
If you're not familiar with him I highly recommend him to you if you are looking for spiritual fulfillment and meaning from our understanding about our universe. Check out his Cosmos series which you can find on Dailymotion, in 12 parts I believe.
Here's one of my favorites, and one that really struck me when I was in the process of de-converting:
"[In reference to all life] These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution. It has the sound of epic myth, but it is simply a description of the evolution of the cosmos as revealed by science in our time. And we, we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, we have begun at least to wonder about our origins -- star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth, and perhaps throughout the cosmos." "Our loyalties are to the species and to the planet. We speak for earth. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring!"
Edit: and a quick favorite vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1cNaFG1VII
Here it is
https://www.scribd.com/doc/288685756/Changes-to-LDS-Handbook-1-Document-2-Revised-11-3-15-28003-29
A natural or adopted child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship, whether the couple is married or cohabiting, may not receive a name and a blessing. A natural or adopted child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship, whether the couple is married or cohabiting, may be baptized and confirmed, ordained, or recommended for missionary service only as follows: A mission president or a stake president may request approval from the Office of the First Presidency to baptize and confirm, ordain, or recommend missionary service for a child of a parent who has lived or is living in a same-gender relationship when he is satisfied by personal interviews that both of the following requirements are met:
The child accepts and is committed to live the teachings and doctrine of the Church, and specifically disavows the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage.
The child is of legal age and does not live with a parent who has lived or currently lives in a same-gender cohabitation relationship or marriage.
Quote Dumbledore.
>“It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry, and forget to live.”
http://hubpages.com/literature/10-Powerful-Quotes-of-Albus-Dumbledore
Since that is a bit short, throw in a bit of backstory as well. Bonus: Fundie Christians will freak the fuck out because Harry Potter is witchcraft.
"An Agnostic's Apology" and the other works of Leslie Stephen (best known as Virginia Woolf's dad) fit into the same discourse and I think they're definitely worth reading alongside Huxley.
> How does StartPage even fund itself?
Q: How does StartPage make money if it doesn't store or sell my personal data?
>>StartPage shows a limited amount of relevant sponsored results on the top and the bottom of the results page. Each time these sponsored results are clicked upon StartPage receives a minimal fee from the advertiser.
> It could well be argued that religious conservatives are nationalists in the Orwellian sense, for they still have an unjustified emotional attachment to a belief or figure. The only difference between them and the conventional understanding of nationalism is that one is political and the other is theological, but as the American right shows, those two spheres can become blurred.
Not all religious conservatives are nationalists, but the ones that are most directly affecting life in the US today mostly are. Trump's base is absolutely dominated by Christian nationalists-- ironic, given that he's probably the least Christian president ever.
There's a good book on the subject called Taking America Back for God. You can get a taste for it in this interview with the authors, where they explain the concept, and break down the differences between just normal Christians vs. Christian Nationalists.
Religion is a part of the "supernatural". I put that in quotes because there is no evidence for the supernatural, whether we're speaking of gods, witchcraft, spirits, ghosts, or otherwise.
You are right in that they seem to go hand in hand. Why? Because both concepts rely on accepting things without evidence. There are Christians here in the West that are terrified of witchcraft, but they believe in it because they accept supernatural claims in the first place. It is true that belief in witchcraft here isn't as prevalent as in Africa, but those that believe in it share the same types of thought processes as those that live in Africa. Likewise, Christians here are leaving their churches because they are starting to fall for the newest rage, "Q" conspiracy theories. Why? Again because they share the same mindset. None of them stress critical thinking, standards of evidence, or media literacy. They accept ideas on faith, on the word of others, and readily give their belief to such things.
One thing many former Christians here struggle with after they walk away from Christianity is that they still have a fear of hell for some time, even as they do not believe any longer in God. When you are surrounded by many people that believe and tell you something is true, it becomes harder to challenge and harder to break out of such a belief. Such fears do fade with time, however. Some even seek therapy or counseling for help with it. It does take courage, especially when your entire peer group believes in such things.
I hope you find your way out of things, and I hope you find peace. One book I always recommend for critical thinking is by Carl Sagan.
I know my advice is not from an especially African point of view, nevertheless I wish you peace.
If you're interested in HOW the bible was put together, by who, and when, the The Bible Unearthed is a great resource. It uses known history, archaeology, etc. not religious views. It's well sourced, and interesting.
Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity: The First 3000 Years was pretty thorough and well written imho.
It starts with the understood origins of the Jewish faith to show its evolution into Christianity, thus the 3000 years.
The 1 star reviews are pretty wonderful if you have a moment to read some of them.
Well if you like Armstrong, she wrote Buddha but this was part of the Penguin short biographies series and that rather restricted her scope. For that and other reasons I didn't much like it (mine is on top if you look at the negative reviews).
Huston Smith's The World's Religions includes Hinduism and Buddhism. It's regarded as a classic. Search Amazon on "history religion" to see many others.
Two angles I can think of here:
1) She may believe now that her life would be worse if she lost faith, but after an adjustment she may become one of us who have gotten used to the idea and become/remained content anyway.
2) As has been said by many of the faithful visitors here: you can retain your faith in God without proof, which they'll tell you is why we call it 'faith'. If your girlfriend has/had a non-denominational faith in God, she probably doesn't need to let bible contradictions and such bother her. Believers can struggle with faith and bounce back into it, particularly if losing faith makes them fearful/uncomfortable. Maybe they drop the parts of it they can't reconcile and keep the rest.
I know you're asking for helpful materials for her to read but I'm afraid I'm little help there. My friend's wife has a copy of this annoyingly-titled book, so maybe give that a look? Best of luck to you both.
Eh, I found the philosophy behind Man's Search for Meaning to be somewhat platitudinal. It's quite clear once you read through it that his philosophy relies upon the existence of meaning being passed on by a divine being, even though he repeatedly tries to unsuccessfully frame it in a secular manner. Would not recommend for a serious nihilist, except for the historically interesting commentary.
FYI: I really liked that quote, so I set about Googling around to find some context for it. Unfortunately, it appears, as best I can tell, that Aristotle never actually said or wrote it. It's probably an extremely bad paraphrase of a section in Nicomachean Ethics which basically says "don't expect more precision in reasoning than the topic allows."
> But is there any real difference between disbelief and lack of belief?
Not a substantial difference. From the free dictionary, disbelief:
> refusal or reluctance to believe
If you disbelieve, I suppose you analyzed it critically and rejected the belief, so it might be a bit stronger than merely lacking belief (you can lack belief if you never heard about God).
If you ever analyzed the belief on the existence of God, two options is to accept of refuse to hold this belief. If you accept you are theist; if you refuse, this means you disbelieve it. From this one can conclude you lack this belief and are atheist on both senses you present.
But there are also other options: you might accept it partially, you might confuse yourself, etc. And you might not come to any conclusion. If you don't conclude anything, you will have a lack of belief (by default) but won't come to disbelieve, if disbelieving means "refusal" - but will disbelieve if disbelieving means "reluctance". So, even with this dictionary definition one may have trouble to separate such close concepts.
But note that disbelief (and, also, lack of belief) does not imply there is any presumption. You can either disbelieve X and don't presume anything, or disbelieve X and presume X is false.
If atheism means disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God, such presumption on its non-existence would be an additional information not conveyed by those meanings of "atheism".
and you are purposely ignoring the fact that the definition you are referencing only indicates disbelief in the abrahamic deity unlike this defintion which actually is technically and linguistically correct.
"Theism": "Belief that at least one god exists"
"A-theism": "Lack of the belief that at least one god exists."
>Atheists lack a belief in gods.
This is the minimum necessary for the term "atheist" to apply.
>Atheists believe there are no gods.
Some do.
>Has atheism always had its present definition
See here the origin of the term from the early 1500s -
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=atheism&searchmode=none
>Where do agnostics fit in?
"Agnostic" basically means "Not sure".
Oh, I think I can answer your question (?) now. First of all I don't like the distinction between direct voluntary control and indirect voluntary control in the linked article. It is a false dichotomy because belief-change occurs in a one-step action that is already true when it happens. So there are no intervening steps and the voluntariness of the action is undefined. It is 100% accidentally-on-purpose. Effective belief change comes not from choosing to believe a certain thing but rather from "choosing" in a very specific and operative way that works like a key (the etymology of choose is interesting here). If we accept this non-definition of doxastic voluntarism then it follows that people frequently perform acts of indirect doxastic voluntarism, but that doesn't mean we can pull off effective indirect doxastic voluntarism whenever we want to. It is difficult and context-based (and that's why we have rituals).
I would not call myself a compatibilist, and I would also not call myself a non-compatibilist. It seems like we have choice but it also seems like there is no way to tell whether we have choice.
This article looks interesting, thanks! I'll try to read it and maybe post more thoughts.
This article is a much better explanation of the writing of the Koran. And it should be said that a majority of Muslims do not believe that Allah wrote the Koran, but that it was a heavenly message delivered to Muhammad through Gabriel. They fully admit it was written by but they feel it was a heavenly message.
People that actually look at reality, as opposed to accepting what they are told, say things like:
"The Creator, if He exists, has "an inordinate fondness for beetles."
attributed to JBS Haldane
>Has it ever sounded plausible when they explain it?
Never. Pure vanity.
> The evidence for secondhand smoke isn't that strong.
You should try reading some.
A lot of them say things like this:
When americans talk about "the South", what we're actually referring to is the southeast quadrant of the country.
There's some disagreement about whether or not certain states are or are not part of "the South." I personally consider Texas and Oklahoma to be part of the West. Others say those two states are the westernmost Southern states.
Seeing as the states haven't technically been at war since the 1860s, it's pointless to nitpick the matter. But, for a general idea, this map is close enough.
http://wikitravel.org/upload/shared//thumb/c/c8/Map-USA-South01.png/350px-Map-USA-South01.png
> I like to quote the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Apparently spurious.
>Misattributed
>>Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
>No printed sources exist for this prior to 2009, and this seems to have been an attribution which arose on the internet, as indicated by web searches and rationales provided at "Marcus Aurelius and source checking" at Three Shouts on a Hilltop (14 June 2011)
>This quote may be a paraphrase of
>>"Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly. But to go away from among men, if there are gods, is not a thing to be afraid of, for the gods will not involve thee in evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs, what is it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods or devoid of Providence? But Gods there are, undoubtedly, and they regard human affairs; and have put it wholly in our power, that we should not fall into what is truly evil."
>from Meditations, Book II, but the quote in question has a quite different meaning.
>Why do Jewish people abstain from eating milk and meat together
The abstention from milk and meat together is to avoid any possible violation of an obscure Biblical law about a young goat and its "mother's milk." I've never really spent any time thinking about the context of the original prohibition - but you can probably find everything you'd ever want to know about it here (this article's probably a bit technical, though).
>or from eating shellfish and pork
As with the former, there are all sorts of technical reasons that have proposed as to why early Jews avoided this (the most plausible one is that they're liminal creatures - see the work of the anthropologist Mary Douglas on this). As for why Christians don't follow this: this was asked on /r/AskHistorians not too long ago - my answer can be found here.
That comes from your religious upbringing. It is perfectly normal to feel that way. I experienced the very same thing. It will go away after awhile. Religious beliefs were most likely drilled into your innocent little head since you were in diapers so it might take a little time to recover. Take a comparative religion course at your community college. Do some research and find out who the most recommended instructors are and enjoy. Try ratemyprofessors.com
The more you learn the less you will worry about the Boogie-Man!
Checking with sitejabber I found they had 8 reviews on their page, including this one:
> Predatory journal warning
> August 13th, 2020
> I have got several emails over the year stating: "Dear Professor, It's so nice to contact you through this email. I have tried to get in touch with you to see if there is a mutual fit between our journal and your research work... I believe in you that your eminent manuscript brings out the best citation to our Journal."
> This was for a journal and a subject I have absolutely nothing to do with. If they really would know that my manuscripts are eminent, they would also know that my field of subject is something different.
> To me it seems they just harvest researchers emails and send "is it possible for you to support us with your transcript for this issue"-emails with deadlines of only a couple of days and hoping to catch a desperate researcher whose job depends on publishing a paper very soon.
> The review by "Samuel C." just confirms that any serious publisher do not rush the publication process like that; and of course they found errors in the text immediately - just look at the poor English of Samuel C's review.
> The other 5-star reviews seem to to come directly from staff at Juniper publishers.
This isn't proof, but, sometimes when you can't appreciate a problem it really helps to see it in action.
There's a website callled BoxCar 2D, which runs a physics simulation in your browser that tries to create the best "car" from a genetic algorithm, which is designed to mimic evolution.
Sometimes it takes a lot of generations to get a decent design, but it gets there. And sometimes the designs that work don't end up looking like what you'd expect (wheels in bizarre places, gigantic poles coming out the back to help with stability issues, etc).
I don't know, just seeing it work in action on the computer helps me to appreciate how it could work in real life, and once you accept that the process works in theory (as you could see on the website), and that you could expect genetic mutations to occur, and that it makes sense that creatures who score better (just have an easier time surviving) tend to be more successful, it's difficult not to accept.
> You have faith that the Nigerian prince is actually a Nigerian prince and won't scam you (you're acting in good faith). You have faith that God is there before you pray.
Are you sure that you are using the same definition of the word faith in both sides of your comparison?
Which of these definitions would you assign to either?
> 1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something. "this restores one's faith in politicians" synonyms: trust, belief, confidence, conviction, credence, reliance, dependence; More antonyms: mistrust
> 2. strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof. "bereaved people who have shown supreme faith" synonyms: religion, church, sect, denomination, persuasion, religious persuasion, religious belief, belief, code of belief, ideology, creed, teaching, dogma, doctrine More
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/faith
The point I'm trying to make is that, although these definitions are often confused, believers seem to show an innate ability to distinguish the two. They apply the second definition to their religion and the first to almost everything else in their lives, including all other religions.
Sometimes this is a valid concern. Google in particular works hard to give people an "echo chamber view" of the Internet.
If you'd like to avoid this, use DuckDuckGo. They explicitly don't do that.
Too many people kinda miss Sam's point. I don't blame them: Harris' books are thick with hard-to-understand monologue. Just to simplify his points, I had to go use the Hemingway editor to ensure I wasn't being too obtuse.
An interesting thing is how the biblical scholars who still believe are extremely liberal in their theology.
For example this piece in the Huffington Post led to a whole series of biblical scholars describing their "Aha!" moments. One example:
>2) John Byron. "The instructor was discussing Mark 2:23-27, which narrates the challenge of the Pharisees to Jesus over his disciples picking grain on the Sabbath. Jesus responds to their question by referring to the story in 1 Samuel 21:1-9 of David and his men eating the consecrated bread from the tabernacle. The problem, however, as I pointed out to my teacher, is that Jesus got it wrong. The story in 1 Samuel 21 relates how David fled from Saul alone."
For many people, such an "Aha!" moment would lead them to abandon that religion. But apparently many of them are so intense in their religious feeling (or so invested), that they still believe.
You might be interested in this book about the history of Christianity. (I highly recommend Bart Ehrman's other books as well. He also has a really good blog as well.)
The Triumph of Christianity: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071D426ZR/
I found reading the comic version of Sapiens did a really great job exploring this topic in a way that a 9yo could both understand and want to keep reading.
Read it with my 8yo. Led to a bunch of conversations.
For a perspective on how things might go for a cryonics patient in the future, read "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" by Dennis E. Taylor. The audiobook narration is great!
Seriously though, try not to think about it. Everything ends. That's life. Live in the moment. You have the ability to choose how you want your life to go. Enjoy life while it lasts and appreciate how lucky you are to be self-aware as a human with opposable thumbs, Pokemon, and SpongeBob.
I am so sorry for the loss of your dog. I am a dog lover myself, and I know how big a part of our lives they become.
As atheists, we just process grief. Time helps (although that cold comfort for you right now). A Grief Workbook for Skeptics is a good source. I hope they have a version in your native language.
I'd like to recommend Ted Chiang's short story Hell Is the Absence of God which is contained in his short story collection Story of your Life and Others (Goodreads - Amazon)
It is set in a world where the Abrahamic god of the Old Testament actually exists and behaves just as described, like a crazed maniac. There are Angel visitations and the existence of hell and heaven is proven.
I really like the fact that there is a group of humanists who rebel against such a god,and willingly go to hell in order to live an honest life where everyone else just obeys in order to get into heaven when they die.
That would be an interesting question for research, if one were so inclined. If you've not read Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto, I would commend it you. Amazon Smile Link
You might find some benefit in the book "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt. In it, he goes through how morals are developed (and religion / belief in a deity is not a requirement for these).
I like Richard Dawkins' point on this (and I paraphrase here):
"So you're telling me that if you were to have a crisis of faith, that you'd suddenly go around killing, raping and pillaging?"
As well as Penn Gillette's statement (although I'm not sure if it's attributable to him) when responding to people asking him why he doesn't go around raping, robbing and murdering, as an atheist:
"I have raped, robbed and murdered the exact number of people I have wanted to rape, rob and murder in my life, and that number is zero!"
I have in my possession but have not yet read Bertrand Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy." Does this work garner a fair amount of respect in academic circles as a primer for those such as myself who seek a cursory understanding of mainstream westerm philosophies?
I am a existential therapist who works with suicidal people on a daily basis for over 20 years. Here are a couple of sources I have found to be illuminating.
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl Very widely cited but no less moving, written by a psychiatrist who loses everything in the Nazi concentration camps of WWII this book provides a template towards finding personal meaning in context of great suffering.
Less popularly well know is the author, Dr. Irwin Yalom PhD who explains existentialism in context of doing practical therapy. Existential Psychotherapy discusses those aspects of the Existential philosophy as it might apply to everyday life and personal meaning with special focus on death, freedom, aloneness, and meaninglessness. Dr. Yalom is a truly original highly regarded theorist in psychology but also a very accessible writer for layman. This book has richly informed not only my professional practice but also my personal life. Plus he cracks a bit on Freudian Psychoanalysis and Skinner behavioral theory, always a fun sport IMHO!
Thanks for replying! I think I'm less concerned with the uncertain possibility that the school's religious affiliation is causing problems than I am about trying to fix a school that shouldn't continue to exist. As I see it, the school's continued existence only helps to preserve the Catholic Church.
I've only been at the school for one year so far. You're right that the religion classes are pretty liberal-- the only reading for my first theology class was The Autobiography of Malcolm X!
Do you at all regret or feel ashamed that you went to a religiously affiliated university?
I grew up catholic, went to all boys catholic high school... Although I was never convinced by the religion that was forced on me (I was never confirmed, so it's not like my folks forced me to act against my conscience), I didn't get a serious opportunity to study anything outside Catholicism til I was a senior, at 19, when I was finally able to take an elective world religions class (first non-catholic/Christian based religion class I ever took) and take a peek under the hood of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. I knew Catholicism was bunk, but spent the next year and a half studying comparative religions before I finally concluded (after really learning about Hinduism) that they're all built to keep powerful people powerful and poor people poor... But I was still looking for some way of understanding the world. The first book I read that really blew my mind wide open was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, when I was 20. It's a pretty accessible, but still pretty deep book about the philosophy of learning and kinda a blueprint for being an auto-didact. It changed the way I think about thinking ... Which is kindof exactly what you need right now, if I can be so presumptuous. I agree w the people above: don't look for atheism to give you a way of looking at the world. Be grateful that it's given you the freedom to think about the world any way you want. It's an incredible gift to give yourself. I'd even recommend stepping away from atheism boards entirely, as there can be a temptation to go from one hive-mind to the next.
Also recommended: The Fall by Albert Camus Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
>I don't want to get into Buddhism or some new-age religion. I just want the techniques.
Sounds good.
Mindfulness in Plain English is by far the best resource and the only one that you'll need.
The full text is available online in various places or as a print book.
Also, here's the FAQ and suggestions in the sidebar of /r/Meditation/
Honestly why? I don't think it's very subjective that the Bible is the most influential book in history and the fact that people choose it as such is sort of fulfilling the answer to that question in itself. The books you mentioned should be more people's radar perhaps but their influence isn't even remotely as far-reaching. There's other books that come to mind for me like The Wealth of Nations or The Communist Manifesto... I know they're wildly influential to economics and geopolitics but I would quickly dismiss them for still not having the same quantity of references.
> How to Win Friends and Influence People
Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
The Richest Man in Babylon
The Magic of Thinking Big
FTFY
You will find
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
and
What Do You Care What Other People Think?
immensely entertaining.
They're collections of short biographical sketches about physicist Richard Feynman, one of the most interesting and amusing people of the 20th century -
- Helped build the atomic bomb, won a Nobel Prize for physics, was on the commission that investigated the explosion of space shuttle Challenger, etc etc. -
- also played bongo drums, hung out in strip clubs ("Because they were quiet places to work"), used to break into people's locked safes and file cabinets and take their secret documents, was a great enthusiast about the mysterious country "Tannu Tuva" "beyond Mongolia" (which he never visited), etc etc.
The books also have some discussion about "How to think scientifically", "How not to be bamboozled by nonsense masquerading as fact" - that sort of thing, relevant to the discussions in this subreddit.
As I say, they're collections of short essays: Easy to read for 20 minutes and pick up again later.
>leaning toward religion and something in their lives made the final push
In this book, The Power of Habit, the author goes on to explain that as humans we really DO need to believe in something. Thats why when you hear of the typical drug addict or alcoholic trading in their drug for Jesus, and living clean, what theyre really doing is shifting their belief onto something else.
Its funny my boss is the most straight edge hard working christian who goes to church every sunday kinda guy, yet all the employees tell me he used to deal hard in drugs and what not. Looking at the guy now, you would never be able to tell. Belief does wonders for a person. It doesnt give religion any more credibility but so long as the person legitimity believes is all that matters.
How to Win Friends and Influence People Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity The Richest Man in Babylon The Magic of Thinking Big
(Note: Haven't read all of these recently so can't say for sure they don't have some Biblical/Christian subtext)
No problem, glad someone else can get enjoyment out of it :) I'd recommend reading "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman". It's essentially autobiographical but just the way he talks about his own life is great. He really just had this wonderful curiosity about him.
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene is an interesting read full of many historical lessons, however he has a very amoral stance. If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! by Sheldon Kopp is all about self reliance and how we must look inward for answers. Recently I read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki and I got a lot out of that Zen Buddhism seems to me to be Buddhisms minus reincarnation and other mysticism. Although there is nothing wrong with just reading some classic literature I'm currently reading Moby Dick.
Bertrand Russell, 'A History of Western Philosophy' is pretty general, but a very good read. It allows you to decide which schools of thought you identify with, what philosophers you're interested in, so you can begin to specialize.
Here is a pretty cheap Amazon book: https://www.amazon.com/Grief-Workbook-Skeptics-Surviving-Religion/dp/0989700429
Also, "grief with God" on Google yields several articles, too. I hope you find your peace soon.
To be fair to you, I should have stated that time only exists in the frame of reference of an observer in the universe and is an emergent phenomenon.
You should follow the links. It's a pretty interesting read.
In the same way you fail to understand that Gnosticism and 'Gnostic' have a more specific definition than the one you're trying to use, you fail also to understand that an argumentum ad hominem must employ the insult or negative characteristic of the arguer specifically for the purpose of negating the argument using only that basis. I didn't say you were wrong because you were idiot. I first said that you were wrong with the argument I was making and then simply called you an idiot because I thought it was the case. Since it was not my argument that your argument was wrong because you were an idiot, it was not an ad hominem.
However, you didn't really have an argument. You simply blatantly ignored what you read in the definition. The definition was the citation I provided, and you simply lacked the objectivity to read it for its meaning. Seeing as you have not provided any citations yourself and I have, it's a strange complaint for you to make.
However, with this post you've made I have a better incite as to your misunderstanding. You don't understand the definition of mystic accurately;
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Mystic
You are correct in saying that an atheist may believe in superstition or other irrational things. However, an atheist may not believe in mysticism, which is a specific kind of religious practice in which a person strives to find personal experiences with a higher entity. It is a way of describing certain religious sects that are typically separate from mainstream religious, but are also forms of theism. Kabbalah falls under this category.
Gnosticism and the adjective 'gnostic' refer to people who wish to acquire sacred and mystical knowledge, meaning personal experiences with a deity. Therefore it is intrinsically non-atheistic. Mystic has a much more specific definition than just 'unsupported faith', otherwise everyone with a religion would be a mystic, and by your conception, even some atheists. However, this is not accurate.
Patronizing? I can see that, yes.
Moronic? You are provably wrong.
I felt that your reply lacked civility, and figured addressing your statement might be better than reporting it. You appeared to be increasingly angry with each reply and I thought that I might simultaneously diffuse that growing rage while putting perspective on it for any who read this. It appears that I have failed in that respect.
Well that really depends on what definition you use. But given that the two largest English speaking dictionaries (Merriam Webster and Oxford English) list religion that way, I think you may be fighting an uphill battle to argue that your definition is one people should use.
What traits do you associate with your god? Where did you get the idea that those traits could be linked to a god? Do you think that you would still have come to believe in the existence of your god if no one else believed in or told stories about gods?