There is no proof that God exists

[Gregg]

Even if one concedes proof of God, which I don't, there is certainty no proof of a specific construct of the nature of such an ultimate creator/power being anything at all like what is promised in any religion.

What do you think is promised by religion?

I obviously generally agree with your statement with the one exception.

[B-Fly]

If there is no God, man is the authority over the world. Good or evil designed by humans as you say doesn't make them false or meaningless, it doesn't make them true either. And it is only meaningful because "we" say it is. The rest of the animal kingdom does not care about feelings, ideas, beliefs. We cannot reason with them. We can control them and train them.

I don't accept that the rest of the animal kingdom is devoid of feelings, ideas or beliefs and that they lack reason. Without writing or tool/machine making they are certainly more limited in their ability to explore and build upon ideas, but I think it's naïve to suggest that they don't reason or don't experience feelings and beliefs. Obviously there's a tremendous spectrum of brain capacity across the animal kingdom, but primates, cetaceans and octopi, among others, exhibit many complex brain functions akin to what we see in humans.

But setting aside the other animals, yes, humans are governed by nature and by themselves, and "good" and "evil" are subjective and open to debate and refinement. They're not fixed and true in the sense of existing outside of and above humans and their societies. Nature and evolution, however, have led to a lot of commonality across geographies and cultures in terms of what human societies have come to define as "good" or "evil", so I'm not really promoting moral relativism, here. There are ways we as a global community can arrive at expectations, norms and rules premised on our judgments on matters of good and evil. Ultimately, though, humans would have to create an effective structure for exercising moral authority and governance across nations/cultures. The UN and its affiliated institutions have been a very imperfect experiment in some of that.

Taking religion out of this statement for a moment man is the only creature on earth that has the true ability to believe. Everything good and evil comes out of that ability. No scientific advancement can be explained without someone believing it could happen. All of our meaningful and true human constructs started with a belief unfortunately so did the "bad" ones.

I think this conflates faith-based beliefs with science/reason-based beliefs in a way that is unfair to the rules and norms and processes of science and reason. Religion is, for the most part, believed without testing/proof - thus the idea of taking something "as gospel" or "as a matter of faith". Science and reason demand testing and proofs and replicability and peer review, etc.

[TranaGreg]

If there is no God, man is the authority over the world. Good or evil designed by humans as you say doesn't make them false or meaningless, it doesn't make them true either. And it is only meaningful because "we" say it is. The rest of the animal kingdom does not care about feelings, ideas, beliefs. We cannot reason with them. We can control them and train them.

Taking religion out of this statement for a moment man is the only creature on earth that has the true ability to believe. Everything good and evil comes out of that ability. No scientific advancement can be explained without someone believing it could happen. All of our meaningful and true human constructs started with a belief unfortunately so did the "bad" ones.

A few things in here that require some discussion ...

I agree with Fly that there is no natural authority in the world. Man is the authority in certain geographic areas certainly, but of the world? no, I don't see it that way. Man influences, but so too do other life forms as well as nature, through weather for example.

Minor quibble but I certainly believe that many animals do care about feelings - spend a few minutes watching animals caring for their young, or protecting the herd ... there's no question that they care about feelings - which do lead to ideas and beliefs.

re: your comment that man is the only creature with the true ability to believe - I'm not sure what you mean by that term. I have had pets that have believed in me, had faith in me ... tho I'm not sure if that's what you mean.

edit: I should have just let B-Fly continue ...

[Gregg]

I don't accept that the rest of the animal kingdom is devoid of feelings, ideas or beliefs and that they lack reason. Without writing or tool/machine making they are certainly more limited in their ability to explore and build upon ideas, but I think it's naïve to suggest that they don't reason or don't experience feelings and beliefs. Obviously there's a tremendous spectrum of brain capacity across the animal kingdom, but primates, cetaceans and octopi, among others, exhibit many complex brain functions akin to what we see in humans.

I am going to call "foul" here. I never said that animals do not think or have feelings or lack reasoning. My dog looks at me lovingly and then when I go to bed sneaks in the cabinet and removes the cookies.

I am stating humans are the only animal that has the ability to believe. And I am making the bold statement that all of what humans do started with a belief that they could do it.

[Gregg]

I think this conflates faith-based beliefs with science/reason-based beliefs in a way that is unfair to the rules and norms and processes of science and reason. Religion is, for the most part, believed without testing/proof - thus the idea of taking something "as gospel" or "as a matter of faith". Science and reason demand testing and proofs and replicability and peer review, etc.

No sir. First I requested that we take religion out of it. You then put it back in and told me it was unfair to the rules and science of reason. Getting back to science. There is no testing, no replicability, no peer review, if someone does not start out with the belief that the thing that gets all this treatment was possible in the first place.

There is no science, no medicine, no technology without someone first believing.

[B-Fly]

No sir. First I requested that we take religion out of it. You then put it back in and told me it was unfair to the rules and science of reason. Getting back to science. There is no testing, no replicability, no peer review, if someone does not start out with the belief that the thing that gets all this treatment was possible in the first place.

There is no science, no medicine, no technology without someone first believing.

I actually think science generally begins with observing and reporting/recording, and that hypothesizing and theorizing (developed through testing and proofs and replicability and peer review) jump off from observation. I don't think they jump off from belief, except in the sense of "seeing (observing) is believing".

[Gregg]

I actually think science generally begins with observing and reporting/recording, and that hypothesizing and theorizing (developed through testing and proofs and replicability and peer review) jump off from observation. I don't think they jump off from belief, except in the sense of "seeing (observing) is believing".

Can you give me some examples of that?

I would also like to ask you how are we defining science in your comment above? Would medicine fall into that. All cures for diseases started with a belief that they could be cured.

[TranaGreg]

No sir. First I requested that we take religion out of it. You then put it back in and told me it was unfair to the rules and science of reason. Getting back to science. There is no testing, no replicability, no peer review, if someone does not start out with the belief that the thing that gets all this treatment was possible in the first place.

There is no science, no medicine, no technology without someone first believing.

By "believing" do you mean "wondering" ? Because I can certainly test out ideas that I'm wondering about without "believing" that they happen to be true.

[B-Fly]

I am stating humans are the only animal that has the ability to believe. And I am making the bold statement that all of what humans do started with a belief that they could do it.

I'm realizing that we're having a semantic problem about "belief" here, so let's try to define what we mean. Paging Merriam-Webster:


1 : a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
//her belief in God

//a belief in democracy

//I bought the table in the belief that it was an antique.

//contrary to popular belief



2 : something that is accepted, considered to be true, or held as an opinion : something believed
//an individual's religious or political beliefs

especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
//the beliefs of the Catholic Church



3 : conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence
//belief in the validity of scientific statements

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/belief

I think animals other than humans have the ability to believe and do, in fact, hold beliefs (e.g., I believe that my owner (or mother) will feed me, I believe that the sound of the cabinet opening at 6am means that food and water will be appearing in my bowl, I believe that the smell of water from a particular direction means that if I move in that direction I will find water). Am I misunderstanding what you mean when you say that humans are the only animal with the ability to believe?

[TranaGreg]

... All cures for diseases started with a belief that they could be cured.

I don't think that this is true. I believe that they were simply people who wanted to cure them - probably really badly. But I don't think it's a given that they believed that they could.

[DMT]

"God" is just a leftover from when we didn't understand science.

Doesn't this address the "belief" in science issue?

[B-Fly]

Can you give me some examples of that?

I would also like to ask you how are we defining science in your comment above? Would medicine fall into that. All cures for diseases started with a belief that they could be cured.

I think you're talking about hope and self-confidence and their influence on inspiration/motivation, more so than "belief" as I understand the word.

By science, I mean "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment," and medicine is advanced and developed through science, yes.

[Gregg]

A few things in here that require some discussion ...

I agree with Fly that there is no natural authority in the world. Man is the authority in certain geographic areas certainly, but of the world? no, I don't see it that way. Man influences, but so too do other life forms as well as nature, through weather for example.
e ...

Nope. Man is the authority over the world.

We have the ability to destroy the world. I am told many times over. No one can stop us except ourselves.

The mightiest creatures we have found ways to subdue. In some cases make extinct. Do you for one minute think there is an animal in the world that we cannot eliminate if we wanted to.

It is lucky for us that we mutated to the top of the food chain. It is the natural order of things if I am to believe what most have stated here.

[DMT]

We can't destroy the world, but we're rapidly making it uninhabitable for ourselves.

[Gregg]

Doesn't this address the "belief" in science issue?

I am not really sure what you mean.