Nferyn's Thread: Intellectual Debate About Religion

Peter singer? Singer is a founding member of the Great Ape Project, which seeks to persuade the United Nations to adopt a Declaration on Great Apes awarding personhood to non-human great apes. 

Singer proposes that anyone able to help the poor should donate at least 10% of their income to aid poverty and similar efforts. Of course there is a religeous attitude in him especially considering he is Jewish. I don't like that sort of thing.

As I said, he is a tad extreme, but he is consequently ethical.

It's not good to have zeal without knowledge. I think in these debates, there's been, at times, a tendency for a lot of zeal, and not as much knowledge as there needed to be. I think the scientists need to get a better grasp on what it is that people are concerned about.

From the other side, I think people, if they're going to have a credible contribution to these very important debates, they have to be brought up to speed on what the information really is and what it isn't. And the good news is, these things are not all that complicated. People assume that it is but, you know, it's really very simple stuff. A modest investment will get you a long way in understanding the issues.

Cool down, chrisd,

I find Singer thought provoking and I follow his reasoning to a certain extent, but he is just too consequent for my taste (I'm coming out of a Catholic country, after all  ).

To set the record straight:
1. I am not against medical research, even where it involves using primates or other apes
2. I am all for genetic engineering. I don't think there is no fundamental difference with natural evolutionary processes working
3. Ethical considerations on medical research should never be driven by a priori's but rather by the consequences of the research in se, not it's potential negative applications
4. There are other elements where irrational attitudes drive the public opinion, e.g. nuclear energy, genetically modified crops. This is why I stopped my membership of Greenpeace

Freedom from suffering. Definitely

Is there a reason that you would have to choose?

Goodguy, you keep on repeating the same tired argument. Free will is incompatible with an omniscient God.
And even if free will would miraculously solve the problem of moral evil, it still does not account for the natural evil in the world (as opposed to the moral evil)

"Free will is incompatible with an omniscient God"

Stop telling God what to do.

I wasn't saying you were the one introducing the argument. It's only that this is the ultimate objection of theists when confronted with the problem of evil: free will

That was the source of the argument, b
ut the same argument still aplplies to this case

Ok, I will try the condensed version (once more):
Omniscience means all seeing, including the future
knowledge of future events means that there is no other action possible than the one God is seeing beforehand
no other action possible equals predestination
predestination contradicts free will

As nicetohave always says, we need to deviate a little in order to prove our points.

I'm trying as much as possible to stay on track with Seun's first post, that is, the reason why he stopped believing.  Let's not deviate into "predestination", as that does not have anything to do with the discussion at hand.

In reference to Seun's post now;

If we're to clearly understand why God allows suffering, we must squarely face another important question - How can we have true freedom of choice and still gain freedom from suffering? We desperately want both, but are both possible at the same time?

I asked you to explain but I wasn't expecting you to digress into predestination. That was why I said we should not deviate.

Anyway, let's go back to the topic.

It seems here what people are interested in is either proving God exists, or God does not exist. Or proving he does not have this attribute or not. A bit crazy.

You have a point there,

I mean, even on religous aspects, both persons in that faith, from other faiths and anyone who has any interest in what's happening in the world, to try to understanding and investigate what it is all about. Most people believe so many wonderful things that is good to investigate why they do.

People who claim that other religions are totally wrong.
People who say all religions are equally true often mean that all religions are equally false – that none of them conveys any factual information about God, that all are just fluff and warm feelings.

It sounds charitable and fair to say all religions are equally good – until you think about it. What would we think of a geologist who said, "Some people believe the world is round and some believe the world is flat, and I think we should let everyone choose the belief with which he is most comfortable"? Would you say he’s an exceptionally wise and tolerant geologist?

Sometimes I think that being fair and accepting all points of view, is not so ggod. Hovever, I agree that all religions deserve equal protection under the law, not because I believe all religions are equally true, but because whenever government gets involved in prescribing religion for people it messes everthing up.

Look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell. Since, there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to hell.

Consider love and music, they are also irrational. That does not make them wrong or untrue. I mean, you really think I am an irrational man about being Catholic. I don't think so, if one believes more what religion teaches than just for the sake of tradition. I am not that stupid.

Of course if something is silly, I certainly would not accept that. I mean, I read a lot of works not only christian. Tolstoy "The Kingdom of God is within you" is good and some buddist texts which make sense.

Expand your argument, goodguy. I'm waiting