Can religion ever conclusively be disproved?

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by danaster29, Jul 4, 2014.

  1. Incorporeal

    Incorporeal Well-Known Member

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    Good.. Have a nice day.
     
  2. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    so do you believe you have to leave your freewill at heavens doorstep?
     
  3. Tram Law

    Tram Law Banned

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    i'm not sure, but I think so.

    Because I've been told things like

    "There is no sin in heaven"

    "There is no bigotry in heaven"

    "We worship god 24/7 for all eternity.

    So, at least to me, it does suggest that we do.

    Because, if we can't have a culture on earth that has no bigotry, hatred, and prejudice, then how can we accomplish this WITHOUT free will?

    It is free will where bigotry comes from, and I don't think you can be bigoted without it.

    so, in order to get rid of bigotry and sin, God has to do some reprogramming of our personalities in some way.

    And i just don't see how he can do that without getting rid of free will.
     
  4. tkolter

    tkolter Well-Known Member

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    If your talking proof here, then that means the Scientific Method its what is used any knucklehead should be able to figure that out who took a standard general science class in High School.

    But what we can do is refute the claims of specific religions if there was never a global flood, exodus and smiting of Egypt or other event that there damned well would be evidence for then that faith is likely wrong and there has yet to be proof there was even a Jesus figure its funny his death caused events foreign scholars and Romans would have noticed - an eclipse, earthquake and so forth. Add to that it mirrors earlier divine herald god-man figures so ,hum, sounds fishy.

    Hell Muhammad has far more evidence at least we are sure he existed.
     
  5. Incorporeal

    Incorporeal Well-Known Member

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    Proof? Did I see you mention 'proof'? Yes I did see that. Well let me remind you that the definition of 'proof' has this to see: 'evidence or argument that compels the mind to accept it as true'. Whose mind is being referenced? The individual person who is viewing the evidence or reading/hearing the argument. It is that individuals mind that has to be compelled to accept the evidence or argument as true. Now, if you want to talk 'proof', then keep on trying because you have not even come close to compelling my mind to accept what you say as true.
     
  6. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    Can anyone prove santa claus or gold coins at the end of a rainbow don't exist?
     
  7. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Of course not. Shining lights into dark places reveals a lot of truths that are wonderfully inconvenient for theists, especially of the creationist variety, but this will never fully disprove such beliefs.

    Anyway, such beliefs are not evidence-based. Believers would like to think they are, but no - they need to study up on confirmation bias and the like.
     
  8. Interwoven

    Interwoven Member

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    Anyone who learned the scientific method in grade school (high school in your case) should notice that there are 3 strands of knowing. "Injunction", "Apprehension" and "Confirmation/Rejection". Injunction basically is "If you want to know this, you must do this". Apprehension is the actual doing of the injunction. Confirmation/Rejection is the results of the apprehension (usually sharing the confirmation/rejection in a collective consensus in a forum of the competent.)

    If you want to verify that Neptune has moons, you have to learn how to adjust and look through a telescope (Injunction). You look through the telescope and see 12 moons around Neptune, if that is the result you get (Apprehension). You share the result with a group of the competent. They may say "No, there are more than 12 moons around Neptune, adjust the telescope and look again." (Confirmation/Rejection).

    This is true in the physical realm, yet it is also true in the subjective mental realm of mathematics.

    If you want to know the answer to a tensor calculus equation, you first have to learn how to do tensor calculus then you have to do the progressive logical steps in your mind (Injunction). So you draw out the equation and symbolically go through the calculations in your mind, step by step to arrive at x=42, if that is the result you get (Apprehension). You compare that result with someone of competence in tensor calculus (you wouldn't necessarily choose the same person/s as the guy who looked through the telescope at Neptune) (Confirmation/Rejection)

    No where does it say that this method only applies to physical and mental realms (someone who claims that it does not apply to the spiritual realm is not abiding by the scientific method or the 3 strands of knowing).

    If you want to know if consciousness can realize the ever-present state of Absolute Nonduality, learn how to do a meditative practice like Zazen or Dzogchen meditation (Injunction). Then put the necessary time and awareness into the practice to make the progress into the subtler levels of reality until spontaneous Self-Realization occurs, if that is the result you get (Apprehension). Share the results with someone of competence in meditation (this is important within any example but this has to be emphasized in the spiritual context (Confirmation/Rejection).

    Or if you want to know if the deepest most subtle level of reality is God's nondual presence of peace beyond understanding, learn to do contemplative centering prayer (injunction). Apply the method with a solemn attitude (which would be a necessity of the injunction in this case) to the point of no detected boundaries between you and God, if that is the result you get (Apprehension). Share the results with a person of competence in this territory (Confirmation/Rejection)

    The "scientific method" has actually been used in the spiritual realm long before applied mathematics or modern science. In Buddhism and Vedanta the entire method is built on practices that induce or plunges one first-hand into these spiritual realities.

    In this way we can scientifically verify the core premises of all Religions...namely, that there is an ever-present, eternal, transcendent ineffable reality that exists and is actually our true identity and it reveals our known reality is comparable to a transitory illusion.

    We can empirically find out by following the scientific method via meditative or contemplative practice with results that are reproducible.
     
  9. OhZone

    OhZone Active Member

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    As to whether or not god exists you might want to examine the reasons for the creation of religion. Well stated here:http://oldsecretsandlies.blogspot.com/2008/10/great-britain-owns-usa.html

    " "Convinced that the principles of religion contribute most powerfully to keep nations in the state of passive obedience which they owe to their princes, the high contracting parties declare it to be their intention to sustain in their respective states, those measures which the clergy may adopt with the aim of ameliorating their interests, so intimately connected with the preservation of the authority of the princes; and the contracting powers join in offering their thanks to the Pope for what he has already done for them, and solicit his constant cooperation in their views of submitting the nations." Article (3)Treaty of Varona (1822)
    If the Sovereign Pontiff should nevertheless, insist on his law being observed he must be obeyed. Bened. XIV., De Syn. Dioec, lib, ix., c. vii., n. 4. Prati, 1844. Pontifical laws moreover become obligatory without being accepted or confirmed by secular rulers. Syllabus, prop. 28, 29, 44. Hence the jus nationale, (Federal Law) or the exceptional ecclesiastical laws prevalent in the United States, may be abolished at any time by the Sovereign Pontiff. Elements of Ecclesiastical Law. Vol. I 53-54. So could this be shown that the Pope rules the world?

    The Pope is the ultimate owner of everything in the World. See Treaty of 1213, Papal Bull of 1455 and 1492."

    So you see its prime purpose was/is CONTROL!!!
    God was deliberately created as an invisible and unverifiable entity to keep the masses in fear of the unknown. Humans are naturally in fear of the unknown and god's clever creators capitalized on that fact.
     
  10. Prunepicker

    Prunepicker Well-Known Member

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    To answer the topic, religion cannot be disproved. People are going
    to create religions. There are religions all over the Earth. There's
    Buddhism, Hinduism, global warming, etc... To prove those religions
    don't exist is an impossibility because they do exist.
     
  11. Tuatara

    Tuatara Well-Known Member

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    No god can be disproved or proven including the FSM. The likeliness or probability factor is a more accurate measure. If I claimed to see an invisible giant purple wombat (with braces) that only revealed himself to me and it told me it created not just this universe but all 7000 universes there is no way anyone can disprove it. As Prunepicker said religions do exist. I think the author needs to change the wording in the OP.
     
  12. Interwoven

    Interwoven Member

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    Yea, that's a pretty unsophisticated straw man hypothetical...of the type that I was referring to in my original post. There are outdated/childish conceptions of God, that is unavoidable. A common error of athiets is confusing what theist are referring to with the word "God"...an old white dude in the clouds is much different than an ever-present, nonlocal, atemporal, transcendant reality that has no direct limited form...or more accurately...all form is an evolving expression of that transcendant.

    The fundamental point is humans go through stages of psychological development...those at the first stages have outdated concepts of God, but atheist tend to only be capable of mentally constructing images and concepts of God that are representations of these lower stages like you did with your ridiculous example.
     
  13. Interwoven

    Interwoven Member

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  14. Vicariously I

    Vicariously I Well-Known Member

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    The idea of free will is already coming to an end and what the hell does religion have to do with freedom of thought?
     
  15. Vicariously I

    Vicariously I Well-Known Member

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    Will humans ever be able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that fairies cannot possibly exist? No, and yet fairies have no real impact on humanity other than being a creature in a story.

    However proving that there is no way to know god on any level is doable and once there is no reason to waste our time on trying to prove a mythology disproving gods existence won't matter.

    In fact we have done that already because the very reason we cannot disprove that a creator god exists is that there is no way to know.
     
  16. OhZone

    OhZone Active Member

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  17. Tram Law

    Tram Law Banned

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    There is no freedom of thought in religion, you do understand that, don't you?

    And how is the idea of free will coming to an end?
     
  18. Wolf45

    Wolf45 New Member

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    Definitely not. Why are you wasting your time here?
     
  19. Vicariously I

    Vicariously I Well-Known Member

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    Of course I do hence my reply. You stated in your reply to the OP in which he asked if we could ever disprove the existence of a God, "It would put an end to any freedom of thought and there'd be no atheists or other unbelievers left."
    What exactly did you mean by this because I must have misunderstood it.

    Science. Many scientists, philosophers and even theologians have struggled to square free will with what we now know of the human brain. Many have tried none have succeeded.

    Of course a common idea or concept taken as a given for thousands of years by the laymen is very difficult to let go of so it will take some time but like the earth being round it will simply be known to future generations.
     
  20. Tram Law

    Tram Law Banned

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    An atheist is a person who has a lack of belief in god.

    if it were proven beyond the shadow of a doubt with actually hard evidence, do you really think there'd be atheists? one of the things many atheists want to see is hard evidence before they convert.

    The only atheists I'd see would be the type of people who would deny it if their hair was on fire.

    An honest person would take a look at that evidence and come to believe in in god since it takes away any sort of doubt.

    Side note: whether it would be the God of the Christian Bible or another god entirely is a separate matter.
     
  21. Vicariously I

    Vicariously I Well-Known Member

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    The part about atheists wasn't what I responded to, it was the part about it being the end of freedom of thought. You haven't explained what you meant by that yet.

    Atheists by their very nature are free thinkers and any of the ones I know would be happy to shed the label because it doesn't really serve much purpose other than to express a position that no matter how simple always seems to confuse people.
     
  22. Tuatara

    Tuatara Well-Known Member

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    What is a god/or gods? We have many that have been described by humans. Beyond that what you are describing (being a human yourself) may not be conscrued as a god. What you have described I've heard a thousand times before but people usually say "God is everywhere and/or God is everything. To me that follows more under philosophy than it does religion. My ridiculous example is no more ridiculous than any god ever defined. And it is non-provable* at the exact same rate.

    * is that even a word?
     
  23. DentalFloss

    DentalFloss Well-Known Member

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    The thread title and this question are incompatible. "Religion" and the existence of an external "creator" are not synonomous. My studies of many things, including Quantum Mechanics, NDE's, and past and between life regression therapies have led me to the conclusion that this reality is actually a calculated simulation that our consciousness exists outside of. But it's let me to also believe that man made religion is mostly bovine excrement, though I do like certain aspects of Buddhism and Hinduism. But the Abrahamic ones are COMPLETE bunk.
     
  24. Interwoven

    Interwoven Member

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    The reality of Spirit (or God, Buddha-Nature, Brahman. Tao, etc..) can be described as an ever-present domain of consciousness that is the highest rung on the ladder of reality and the substratum of existence itself and the 'lower' levels (matter, life, mind, and higher mind with possibly more to emerge in the future with the evolution of the universe.)

    The felt experience is an earth-shattering transcendence of your body/mind/ego that is markedly different from any form of mental phenomenon including hallucinations or altered states of consciousness due to it being a realization of something that's 'always there' and not an experience which appears...stays and goes. One's deepest essence and only identity are seen to be indistinguishable from God or the absolute nondual nature of existence. The qualities include a knowing of the true sense of infinite...spacial nonlocality and timeline atemporality gives recognition that the universe is occuring within you, not vice versa. A bit of relief is felt in knowing that there is no possibility of dying or ending because there was no birth or beginninig. Eternity is not a timeline with arrows going both ways infinitely...but exist as sort of like a broader unchanging context that, again, the universe occurs within. Inexpressible love and gratitude are seen to be directly associated with the aspect of eternity.

    This reality is seen to have true substance as compared to the transitory limited 'concrete' reality we had previously accepted, even though it's nature is very subtle. All paradoxes self-liberate into obvious understanding.

    That question is nonsensical. Here's the quandry...religion is a path to realizing these subtle realities that leads one out of suffering and becoming aware of these realities, but it has also almost inevitably been hijacked by humans to package their own ideologies that cause suffering.
     
  25. Interwoven

    Interwoven Member

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    Humans unavoidably take part in interpreting everything they perceive, do to the mind, by contructivism and contextualism. The 2 main factors involved are the stage of psychological development someone is at and what cultural framework they usd to process reality. A five year old chilean boy and a 55 year old Italian philosopher female will have vastly diffrent interpretations of "Avatar"...one perhaps absurd sounding (maybe both)...but it's possible to infer they are speaking of the same movie.

    An important factor of psychological stages of development is that all humans have to pass through the stages...there is no skipping. Some of the stages were cutting edge 2 or 3 thousand years ago...but now they are outdated.

    There are also the 'descriptions' that are outright lies, usually for greed or attention and also the misplaced or misinterpreted cause that's wrongly attributed to spiritual origens.
     

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