Colbert's religion
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wintermonk — 11 years ago(April 10, 2014 02:12 PM)
"The belief in a creator god is delusional."
Yeah, it is a great delusion to believe that some big cosmic wizard said Hocus-Pocus and "poof" the world popped into existence.
But then the atheist believes the same thing, just without the wizard.
I tend to think the first one is far more reasonable than the second. I've seen a wizard pull a bunny out of a hat. I've yet to see a bunny pull itself out of a hat. -
Halbermensch999 — 11 years ago(April 11, 2014 02:27 AM)
Except that there are no wizards. And the fact that there is no evidence for anything supernatural. And the fact that supernatural claims made in religious books 5b4have been falsified over and over again.
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wintermonk — 11 years ago(April 11, 2014 05:41 AM)
"Except that there are no wizards."
I guess the concept of a comparison (and a not entirely serious one) is eluding you here.
"And the fact that there is no evidence for anything supernatural."
How do you know that? You can't know that unless you are omniscient. You have a tiny sphere of experienceall of humanity doesand perception in the universe. Much happens outside that sphere. And even then, humans are prone to misperceiving and misunderstanding what they do see. So evidence could exist, but you have not yet seen it (you haven't seen lot of things), or it does exist, but you are not recognizing it. In fact, it could be that it is so common that you don't even realize it is there.
"And the fact that supernatural claims made in rel2000igious books have been falsified over and over again. "
I'm sure some have. Nobody is claiming that any person or book that makes a supernatural claim is equally legitimate.
But Christ claimed that his Gospel would reach the ends of the earth. He made that claim when he was a nobody in some backwater province of the Roman Empire with a small band of mostly-uneducated followers. Fishermen. Quite a prediction. But I guess that's just a coincidence.
Also, it seems to me that the atheist's belief that there is no good is not a falsifiable belief. He/she will not accept anything as evidence, so why bring some? It will always be dismissed/explained away. Or else they want something silly like Zeus standing on a mountain chucking lightning bolts, and the like. Even in the times of the early Christian church, people were beginning to abandon such silly notions of gods.
Finally, the very word "supernatural" itself is a bit strange. If there is a God with powers, his powers would work for a reason, once you understand the reason, you understand the law. Ultimately, everything is governed by laws. As Arthur C. Clarke said, magic is simply science (or you could say, laws) that we don't yet understand.
So, as a Christian, I don't believe in magic. I do believe there are some things that might APPEAR as magic, but they are simply taking advantage of laws that we cannot yet understand or make use of.
Kind of like dark mattersomething we don't know of and cannot yet understand. All we see is its influence on the natural world, but we have no idea what it is. We don't even know if it's matter or just something else entirely.
The religious man, similarly, sees the influence of the supernatural on the natural.
It's like those computer-generated CG images popular back in the 90's. Two people look at them. One sees a mess, like abstract art. Another person, who focuses beyond the picture, see what APPEARS to be chaos come together into a picture of a fighter jet or a dolphin jumping out of water. or something like that.
The two people are looking at the same thing. One see what is there; the other does not. The one who only looks at the surface of things sees chaos. The one who looks beyond doesn't see beyond, but by looking beyond, what he does sees comes into true focus and a hidden picture is revealed.
So, when the atheists says, "I seen no evidence for God." It could be that it is like thee man looking at the CGI image saying, "I see no dolphin jumping out of water."
Perhaps it's there. You don't see it because you have a certain way of looking at the worldcertain assumptions and philosophies that you accept as true and that skew how you perceive the natural world, inevitably causing you to see it in such a way that it simply reinforces beliefs you don't wish to change.
The religious man that does see the picture? Well, telling a religious man there is no evidence for God is like telling a man who see the picture of the dolphin in the 3-d CGI picture that there is no dolphin. You can talk about evidence and wax scientific about whatnot till the cows come home. He knows what he sees. -
Halbermensch999 — 11 years ago(April 11, 2014 12:37 PM)
"How do you know that? You can't know that unless you are omniscient. You have a tiny sphere of experienceall of humanity doesand perception in the universe. Much happens outside that sphere. And even then, humans are prone to misperceiving and misunderstanding what they do see. So evidence could exist, but you have not yet seen it (you haven't seen lot of things), or it does exist, but you are not recognizing it. In fact, it could be that it is so common that you don't even realize it is there. "
We know that there is no evidence for the supernatural because if there were then many scientific books would have to be rewritten and Nobel prized to be handed out. People claiming to have supernatural abilities have been constantly tried in controlled experiments and they fail. Of course we cannot know whether there is evidence for such things in the future, but we could say this about an infinite number of things. And forget about seeing, people have all sorts of mental problems and misconceptions that make them see and go through many kinds of things. People of all religions do this, but if their holy books are right then they cannot all be right, but they could easily all be wrong.
"Nobody is claiming that any person or book that makes a supernatural claim is equally legitimate. "
Actually it's not so uncommon to hear from some believers that all faiths are the manifastation of the same truth, they just focus on describing different parts of the same thing.
"But Christ claimed that his Gospel would reach the ends of the earth. He made that claim when he was a nobody in some backwater province of the Roman Empire with a small band of mostly-uneducated followers. Fishermen. Quite a prediction. But I guess that's just a coincidence. "
Poor point, because he still hasn't convinced most of the world that he exists. If we're very generous with the Christian number then that adds up to 2 billion people, out of what? 7 billion. So, he's all powerful, all wise yet he cannot convince most of the world that he exists. And there are parts on this globe which has never heard this good news to begin with, as they are still isolated.
"Also, it seems to me that the atheist's belief that there is no good is not a falsifiable belief. He/she will not accept anything as evidence, so why bring some? It will always be dismissed/explained away. Or else they want something silly like Zeus standing on a mountain chucking lightning bolts, and the like. Even in the times of the early Christian church, people were beginning to abandon such silly notions of gods. "
All religida0on is silly, so at least you're getting closer to the truth here. The bible clearly states that you have to rely on faith, and if you would have actual evidence then you wouldn't have to believe because you would know. An all powerful god could solve this in a nano-second, in fact, he could rewrite the past to create a new present. At least that way Big Brother wouldn't have to bother to send most to hell. And notice too that all religions make truth claims, but even with thousands of years of work behind them they still show up at a trial without a case.
But to come back to this evidence thing, God could for instance make all diseases vanish overnight. He wouldn't even have to show himself or anything, but that would certainly be something which cannot be explained by any natural means, that would do it for me.
"Finally, the very word "supernatural" itself is a bit strange. If there is a God with powers, his powers would work for a reason, once you understand the reason, you understand the law. Ultimately, everything is governed by laws. As Arthur C. Clarke said, magic is simply science (or you could say, laws) that we don't yet understand. "
But the religious have claimed for thousands of years to know the truth, but not only that, they claim to know the mind of god. See the disconnect here?
And the actual Clarke quote goes like this: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." He says that you cannot see the difference between the two, but he does not say that they are the same.
He also said:
"You will find men like him in all of the world's religions. They know that we represent reason and science, and, however confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy a religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistance of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now."
"So, as a Christian, I don't believe in magic. I do believe there are some things that might APPEAR as magic, but they are simply taking advantage of laws that we cannot yet understand or make use of. "
There's plenty of magic in the scripture:
http://www.openbible.info/topics/magic
"Kind of like dark mattersomething we don't know of and cannot yet understand. All we see is its -
wintermonk — 11 years ago(April 11, 2014 02:49 PM)
"Poor point, because he still hasn't convinced most of the world that he exists. If we're very generous with the Christian number then that adds up to 2 billion people, out of what? 7 billion."
He only said that his gospel would spread throughout the earth. It did that. He never forces anyone to accept it. There are many other specific prophecies that have been fulfilled, and many specific ones YET to be fulfilled.
" So, he's all powerful, all wise yet he cannot convince most of the world that he exists."
Why must he convince? He did what he did as an atoning sacrifice. People can accept or reject itif man is so wonderful, fine, reject the gospel. Hope it works out for you. However, if it doesn't turn out to be a wise choice, don't complain to me about it.
"All religion is silly, so at least you're getting closer to the truth here. The bible clearly states that you have to rely on faith, and if you would have actual evidence then you wouldn't have to believe because you would know."
Well, the inevitable strawmen that atheists create are ridiculous. It's a false dilemma atheists erect in their mind "EIther God is like Zeus, a big dude on a mountain chucking lightning bolts around, or there is no god." That just reveals an atheist's insecurityhis need to make a belief he doesn't agree with as ridiculous as possible to feel intellectually justified in rejecting it.
And your definition of faith is not entirely accurate. First of all, we all operate on faith all the time. As G. K. Chesterton said, Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. Mot of what you BELIEVE has not been proven to you personally. And even if something has been proven to you, how do you know it has? You may believe it has, so you are now operating on belief. Underneath all "knowledge" is a foundation of belief. A great many assumptions.
Faith is like looking at a chair and choosing to trust that it will hold you up or not. It is not blind at all. If I see a chair that looks weak, I won't sit in it. You have chosen to put your confidence in certain things and people. Again, I hope it works out for you. But I suspect that if you analyzed all the things you believe, you'd find that the vast majority if it, you simply believed because you were told it was so. That there are many assumptions upon which you operate without realizing it.
"
But the religious have claimed for thousands of years to know the truth, but not only that, they claim to know the mind of god. See the disconnect here? "
Not really. Some might know it. Some might not. Who is to say? If there is a God, he could decide to go fishing with me today and not anyone else. That's his prerogative. If I should go fishing with him today, some scientist could talk about laws and reason till the cows come home. I know what I saw, what I've done, who I've talked to.
Should I consider mister atheist a better authority on my experiencesthings he has not seenthan myself? The atheist hasn't followed me around. On what authority can he speak about what only I have seen, done, experienced? But this is what the atheist does. "You, Mister religious man, I know you THINK you have had spiritual experiences and have had communication with God, but you didn't. I know. Yes, I have not followed you around. I have not seen what you have seen. I don't know where you have been or what you have done. But I am still a better authority on your life than you are."
"He says that you cannot see the difference between the two, but he does not say that they are the same.
He also said:
"You will find men like him in all of the world's religions. They know that we represent reason and science, and, however confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy a religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistance of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now." "
Yeah, but the point being, it seems that modern atheists seem to insist that if there is a God he is like Zeus or Thor. Well, that's not God. That's not what people believe about God.
Even Paul, 2000 years ago talked to the people of Athens about their somewhat silly notions of God. From Acts: "Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worshipand this is what I am going to proclaim to you. "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rathe -
Halbermensch999 — 11 years ago(December 19, 2014 11:35 AM)
"He only said that his gospel would spread throughout the earth. It did that. He never forces anyone to accept it. There are many other specific prophecies that have been fulfilled, and many specific ones YET to be fulfilled. "
Actually no, it still hasn't spread to everyone. So again, if this system is true then most people will end up in hell. Remember that this is from the all powerful god who supposedly loves everyone. All powerful yet there is still a hold-up?
"Why must he convince? He did what he did as an atoning sacrifice. People can accept or reject itif man is so wonderful, fine, reject the gospel. Hope it works out for you. However, if it doesn't turn out to be a wise choice, don't complain to me about it. "
Do you want people to go to hell? Does god not with his infinite powers have some responsiblity for saving people from his wrathcos he loves 'em?
"Well, the inevitable strawmen that atheists create are ridiculous. It's a false dilemma atheists erect in their mind "EIther God is like Zeus, a big dude on a mountain chucking lightning bolts around, or there is no god." That just reveals an atheist's insecurityhis need to make a belief he doesn't agree with as ridiculous as possible to feel intellectually justified in rejecting it. "
No, it's not a strawman, the bible claims that god is all powerful (he did create everything after all, he is the source for everything). Which is why questions like can god himself make a rock which he himself cannot lift are not easy to answer. Insecurity? We're not the one with blaspheme laws, even in Europe it is a crime to question certain beliefs and in some parts of the middle-east it is a certain death-sentence. Besides, the religious know that beliefs are silly, which is precisely why they do not want them questioned. And they know that other faiths are ridiculous too.. but their own myths need protection. This is why it was not many years ago that the Catholic church wanted to join other religious groups in fighting secularism as one of the evils of the world. They fear losing power. And the same Catholic church said it would talk with atheists but not with Hitchens and Dawkins, because both could easily demonstrate what a bunch of BS the faith is.
"And your definition of faith is not entirely accurate. First of all, we all operate on faith all the time. As G. K. Chesterton said, Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. Mot of what you BEL5b4IEVE has not been proven to you personally. And even if something has been proven to you, how do you know it has? You may believe it has, so you are now operating on belief. Underneath all "knowledge" is a foundation of belief. A great many assumptions. "
"Faith is like looking at a chair and choosing to trust that it will hold you up or not. It is not blind at all. If I see a chair that looks weak, I won't sit in it. You have chosen to put your confidence in certain things and people. Again, I hope it works out for you. But I suspect that if you analyzed all the things you believe, you'd find that the vast majority if it, you simply believed because you were told it was so. That there are many assumptions upon which you operate without realizing it. "
Faith is believing in things which you know not to be true. And we don't need the word faith when it comes to a chair, we can use the word probability. No, we atheists never claim to be able to trust our rationality on things, of course we have to make assumptions that things are this or that way but the difference with religion is that it is dogmatic. But ultimately the goal should not be to operate under too many assumptions, we should try to actually know. Sometimes the argument is given by the likes of Dinesh D'souza that we have to make a leap of faith to know if a person will want to be with you and the same is with true with god. We have to take a step, according 16d0to Dinesh, to find out if we can have a relationship with god. But it's not a good example, because first of all we can with greate certainty assume that the person actually exists compared to a god. We can take in this information in various ways, by eyesight, by hearing, by touch etc besides, why do so many religious people find so many different gods? Seems to me that is nothing more than make-believe, and that's not much to have.
"Not really. Some might know it. Some might not. Who is to say? If there is a God, he could decide to go fishing with me today and not anyone else. That's his prerogative. If I should go fishing with him today, some scientist could talk about laws and reason till the cows come home. I know what I saw, what I've done, who I've talked to. "
And you wouldnt question your sanity first? Not sure that you are not dreaming? And how do you explain that many people meet so many different gods, but they seldom meet other gods they are not familiar with. Maybe this is all created in the brain?
"Should I -
nikkiten1979 — 11 years ago(December 19, 2014 07:38 AM)
We know that there is no evidence for the supernatural because if there were then many scientific books would have to be rewritten and Nobel prized to be handed out.
People claiming to have supernatural abilities have been constantly tried in controlled experiments and they fail.
Of course we cannot know whether there is evidence for such things in the future, but we could say this about an infinite number of things. And forget about seeing, people have all sorts of mental problems and misconceptions that make them see and go through many kinds of things. People of all religions do this, but if their holy books are right then they cannot all be right, but they could easily all be wrong.
Talking about people with supernatural abilities I have actually witnessed it myself with my own eyes and have zero explanation for what I saw - I tend to be irrationally skeptical about these types of claims. Most claims are bogus, but some really are not. You can't always test a person like that - one needs to have all the conditions to line up for them. Controlled experiments are recipes for failure. I can play the piano really well at home, but put me in front of an audience and I will freeze - nothing will happen, it's as if I don't know what a piano is
I AM DEE BEE 10 years ! -
zerobeat — 15 years ago(May 23, 2010 01:45 PM)
ajones1113-2 writes:
"A person or belief system can only be said to be delusional when they refuse to integrate or reconcile fact into their worldview, hence, free-thinkers like Spong, Tutu, Tillich or even the Vatican (which does take into consideration modern scientific findings) can't seriously be considered delusional. "
I suppose it's all degrees of delusion. A small child may literally believe in Santa Claus because parents feed that [mostly harmless] "prank". As the child gets a little older it becomes obvious that it's all fantasy by virtue of just being exposed to logic and reality, and not necessarily because the parents have revealed it all to be fake (although that will hasten the reality check). A 12 year old who still literally believes in Santa Claus, even when all manner of reality and logic is made clear, would be considered as delusional. When that child becomes and adult and still believes these things, there might be no hope of living a rational life.
But somehow when the supernatural belief is based in religion, a different set of standards is applied.
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ajones1113-2 writes:
"while religion can very often pave the way to violence and fundamentalism, there's no reason to condemn or ridicule somebb68ody simply because they have religious beliefs. "
Agreed, their actions should be the basis of judgement.
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zerobeat — 15 years ago(July 10, 2010 07:51 PM)
I'm guessing that a certain percentage of people I consider quite rational and sane (like Colbert), but who are also religious, are probably hedging their bets "just in case". Or they just live in a situation where it would be too awkward not behave religiously (say, peer pressure). They would likely relish the no1c84tion that religion might one day be irrefutably proved as false (even though the onus should be on religion to provide a scintilla of evidence that it's true, as opposed to playing the "faith" card).
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SylvesterFox007 — 15 years ago(July 20, 2010 08:51 PM)
Just take a look for yourself:
http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2007/edition_09-23-2007/AStephen_Colbert
The games afoot. Follow your spirit and upon this charge cry God for Harry,England,and St. George -
Sawyer_Lost — 13 years ago(July 13, 2012 12:12 AM)
I haven't missed a single Colbert Report in 6+ years and I'm willing to bet anything that I have that Colbert is secretly an agnostic. Not only because he mocks (even moderate) religious beliefs the way he does, you can get also get a clear sense of it when you watch his interviews with scientists, or atheist authors like Dawkins or Sam Harris. I'm sure he knows that most things in the Bible are fictitious, he mocks scripture regularly. Still, he probably gets a kick out of scripture, too, he has an ardent love for fantasy (a big Lord of the Rings fan) so fantasy is what it is for him mostly - and he just picks out all the moral bits and teaches those at sunday school.
His mother is a devout, 91-year old catholic. I could imagine that he doesn't want to disappoint her as long as she's alive by renouncing his religion, but in the meantime he's doing his best mocking it.
Team Coco -
culwin — 13 years ago(September 07, 2012 11:45 AM)
A huge number - I would guess a majority - of American Catholics are "Catholic in Name Only". It's pretty clear cut what Catholics are supposed to do and believe (there's no room for "interpretation"), but none of the Catholics that I know, follow or believe in the Church's dogma or teachings 100%. Most of them only go to church a couple of times a year.
^Signature is below here
< I'm the first to ever use this icon -
neerood — 11 years ago(April 10, 2014 05:59 PM)
Indeed, I think you've nailed it.
And many self-professed devout Catholics don't defend or even recognize the main pillars of their religion if asked.
Show me a Catholic who thinks cannibalism is OK (eating Christ's "flesh", drinking "blood") or believes in daily liquid miracles (wine turning into blood, water turning into wine)
Few priests would even sign off on these, yet these are two of the most important and inflexible rules of Catholic belief. Then tack on other mandatory beliefs like virgin birth, reversal of death, and literal interpretation of a 6000 year old planet.
As for the religion becoming "modern" with recent PR friendly mild comments about gays sorry but as long as the Catholic church continues to have "infallible" regulations that any man is expressly superior to all women, they still have a long way to go. And Colbert seems to know that. -
pilarinhavana — 11 years ago(April 10, 2014 11:39 PM)
and literal interpretation of a 6000 year old planet.
That's not a Catholic teaching.
The Time Question
Much less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite agethat it has not existed from all eternitybut it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.
Catholics should weigh the evidence for the universes age by examining biblical and scientific evidence. "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 159).
The contribution made by the physical sciences to examining these questions is stressed by the Catechism, which states, "The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies whic5b4h have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers" (CCC 283).
It is outside the scope of this tract to look at the scientific evidence, but a few words need to be said about the interpretation of Genesis and its six days of creation. While there are many interpretations of these six days, they can be grouped into two basic methods of reading the accounta chronological reading and a topical reading.
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/adam-eve-and-evolution