Crows are pretty damn smart

[ikke]

I disagree. I'd say a cult is a religious group that performs practices viewed as negative by the general population. Satan worshipers are a cult and will remain so, so long as they do not constitute more than 50% of the population. LDS- and christian scientist- members do not perform any practices generally viewed as negative, so they are not cults. Wikipedia, btw, agrees with me.

I agree that cult has a negative connotation in everyday use that the term religion lacks. So use of either term is subject to the speaker's perception. Romans tolerated many religions, but persecuted early christianity because it was seen as disruptive to society. Clearly cult. I cannot see the RK church stand on condoms in the light of the aids epedemic as anything else than negative. The majority of dutch will probably agree. Same for its stance on same sex relations or the position  of women in the church. Does that make the roman catholic church a cult? German gouvernment thought of enacting a berufsverbot against members of Scientology. Earlier berufsverbote have been directed against (neo) nazi's and communists. Scientology, cult or religion?

[Numsgil]

It may be interesting, but it still is viewed as negative by the general population and therefore is a cult.

It is viewed negatively but I think that's as much from ignorance as anything else.  Luciferism isn't about sacrificing goats and babies to a big red faun, which is presumably what the common perception of it is.

If you define cult as any group viewed negatively by the majority of society than that's a pretty broad definition.  You could include groups like the Black Panthers, Al-Qaeda, Romas (aka Gypsies), Jews in Nazi Germany, etc. etc.  I would say that a cult would better be defined as a revolutionary (in the sense of rebelling against the mainstream religious views of their people), authoritarian religious group.  Early Christianity was a cult, by this definition, until the Romans mass converted.  Luciferism isn't a cult because of it's strongly non authoritarian beliefs.

I'd say the "cultiness" of a group is a function of it's size, acceptance by the surrounding community, and authoritarian leanings.

[Numsgil]

IMO, to the general population, there's an absolute definition of right vs. wrong, since the general population is religious. Satan-worshipers may be the nicest people in the world, but since what they believe, and therefore do, is completely against the general population's concept of right, they are a cult according to the general population.

That's what I mean.  The general population thinks Satanists are doing things they would find wrong, but they're really not.  Well, maybe slightly distasteful, but not evil.  For instance, one of the 11 Satanist "commandments" is to be cruel to people in your home you find annoying.  I think Satanism is a good example because if you define cult as a perception by the majority, then it's not really an inherent aspect of the group and it loses all meaning.

Anyway, do you have any thoughts on the pascal's wager argument?

Since you're atheist, do you view life as nihilistic? If you're religious, do you view religion as non-nihilistic, even though our goal is to experience an emotion forever? Why?

I'm less theistic vs. atheistic than I am nihilism vs. non nihilism.  People who believe in something are happier and more well adjusted than people jaded with a nihilistic world view.  Humans are built to have deep seated convictions.  It's encoded in our DNA.  It's how our brains are wired.  We need it as much as we need air, water, food, and companionship.

Pascal's wager assumes the reward happens after death, but I say the reward comes directly from the belief.  It doesn't necessarily have to be a belief in God, just a belief in something less immediate than eating and screwing.

[ikke]

It's how our brains are wired.

Literally, a couple of years ago a region in the brain was found that is linked to experiencing mistical senstations. If it was stimulated people would report all sorts of mystical experiences. A group of nuns was discovered to have a higher natural level of activity than the reference group.

As for wagers argument: the assumption is rationality, which is a stretched goal for humanity. To add to nums direct reward: one of the rewards is the recognition of belonging to the ingroup (however defined). Just being one of the babboons in the troup is already reward and this is handed out through shared ritual behaviour

[Numsgil]

nums-

If you think our goal is to be happy, then you're embracing nihilism.

Atheism is the belief that the reward is in this life (as in being happy in this life), and so you're left with nihilism. This includes people who go to church, but do it just to have the benefits of going to church so they can be happy in this life- they're atheist and nihilist, IMO, even if they don't know it.

If your goal is to be happy I'd say that's more epicureanism.  Happiness is everyone's goal; I think that's a Greek Philosophy argument.  Everyone does what they think will make them happy.  Nihilism to me is strongly associated with self-destruction and hedonism.  A world view that happiness isn't worth chasing because it's all just chemical signals in the brain anyway, and therefore entirely immaterial and without value.

[bacillus]

Here's another interesting point: if you can prove the existence of god, how do you prove that there is only one god?

[d-EVO]

you are totaly missing the point.

you know there are beliefs that entitle many gods. eg. paganism.
they believe that there is a god for everything. eg. rain, land, fire ect.
And they worship these gods.
so they are baisicaly worshiping idols (material objects).
this is stupid because worshiping the sky is not going to make it rain, worshiping fire is not going to protect you from burns ,ect.

we believe in one god because why would we believe in many ?!

maby I am missing your point.
Do you think that If it is possable for there to be a god, why not many gods?
well god is in essence, an all powerfull being that has total power over everything.
How can there possably be many beings that have total power over everything? It does not work.

another point

I do not believe that you should believe in god because of pascals wager.
If you believe in god just because you dont want to have the risk of going to hell, then do you trully believe in god ? if not you will go to hell anyway.  

You believe in God because you want to have a relationship with him, and yes, it does include benifits such as happines and a sence of being.

Hell is not a place with little red thingies with pitchforks running around torchering dead people  
Hell is eternall seperation from God.
What I am about to say is not exactly politicaly correct but...
atheists are going to hell wether you like it or not,
this goes for everybdy if God does not exist.  

I want to clear up a few other things to.

first of all, I never actualy called Jahova's witness a cult.
I simply said many christians veiw it as a cult which is true.

The big bang and evolution does not even contradict genisis as much as you say it does.
It says the world was created in 7 days. 1 day is about 1 rotation of the earth. earth wasnt made yet so how could it posibly say it was made in 7 days.
I belive it was made in 7 stages.
some people ask why the bible doesn't explain how he did it.
My answer is, he could of. but if the bible said that "  then nuclear fision occured in a supper dense cloud of hydrogen gass and [maxwell's Equation] and ect..." and then there was light. I dont think they would of taken it seriously in ancient times.
The only thing you could argue with is the creation of Eve from a rib of adam, but that is baisicaly saying that woman is from man and man is from woman.

The bible is a religious book unlike any other.
It makes claims that no other book would dare to make.
at least 25 % of the bible is Prophecy , and of that 80 % has come true
The odd's of this happining is imposable to comprehend
some info at this site

http://www.hopeofisrael.net/index.php?opti...4&Itemid=30

what it baisicaly says is the odds of just 8 Prophecys in the bible comeing true is about 1 in 10^17
or 1000000000000000000
but there are many more than 8 prophecys
In another calculation, 48 prophecies were used even though 456 could of being used (dont think he had a big enough calculator ) and arrived at the extremely conservative estimate that the probability of 48 prophecies being fulfilled in one person is the incredible number 1 in 10^157 !!!!!
that is a numbere with 157 didgets on it, not even going to attempt writing it.

the other 20 % are prophiceys about the end of the world. wat does that tell you?  

That is all I can think of for now. any questions

[ikke]

ikke-

What do you mean when you say pascal's wager assumes rationality?

The assumtion is that people can make a rational choice and stick with it, while in truth we rationalise our emotional decisions and fail to live up to them.

[Numsgil]

Hell is not a place with little red thingies with pitchforks running around torchering dead people  
Hell is eternall seperation from God.
What I am about to say is not exactly politicaly correct but...
atheists are going to hell wether you like it or not,

Not that it matters much, but I think that's more the definition of damnation.  There are Christian sects which separate the idea of separation from God (damnation) and Satan's realm (Hell).  Among them Catholics with the idea of Purgatory.

The big bang and evolution does not even contradict genisis as much as you say it does.
It says the world was created in 7 days. 1 day is about 1 rotation of the earth. earth wasnt made yet so how could it posibly say it was made in 7 days.
I belive it was made in 7 stages.

Actually, if you go to the original Hebrew the word used is yom, which in addition to meaning a day like we understand day can sometimes be used to define a period of time (much like hour in English can mean 60 minutes or a time period (see definition 5 and 6)).  So that interpretation is supportable even in a literalistic interpretation of the genesis account.

The bible is a religious book unlike any other.
It makes claims that no other book would dare to make.
at least 25 % of the bible is Prophecy , and of that 80 % has come true
The odd's of this happining is imposable to comprehend
some info at this site

Except that most of the prophecy that came true is recorded only in the book itself, since it happened in prehistory.  Likewise the prophecies in the new testament either are Millennial in nature or happened soon after Jesus's death, during the period of time it is believed that the new testament was written by the Apostles (60-100 AD).  I'm thinking specifically of Jesus's prophecy concerning the destruction of the Temple.  And of course the prophecies in Revelations which can be read to refer to the middle ages, but those are worded to be interpreted in many different ways.  You can't look at the Judeo-Christian mythos and "prove" it.  It's entirely self referential.

As a clearer example, in the Book of Mormon used by the LDS church, there's a prophetic verse which is clearly a reference to Joseph Smith, the translator of the book and first Prophet of the Church.  If the book was an ancient record Joseph was translating, it's a prophecy that came true, and strengthens his claim to be divinely inspired.  If Joseph made the book up (or used spirit writing, which I think is a more believable criticism given the way the book was written and Joseph's limited education), then it just proves him even more as a fraud.  For the believers it strengthens belief, and for the cynics it strengthens disbelief.  That's the pattern for the Bible as well.  If it's true, it proves its truth even more.  If it's false, it proves itself false even more for its need to prove itself true.

[d-EVO]

Except that most of the prophecy that came true is recorded only in the book itself, since it happened in prehistory.  Likewise the prophecies in the new testament either are Millennial in nature or happened soon after Jesus's death, during the period of time it is believed that the new testament was written by the Apostles (60-100 AD).  I'm thinking specifically of Jesus's prophecy concerning the destruction of the Temple.  And of course the prophecies in Revelations which can be read to refer to the middle ages, but those are worded to be interpreted in many different ways.  You can't look at the Judeo-Christian mythos and "prove" it.  It's entirely self referential.

You are forgetting that many prophecys in the old testament are refering to the new.
the bible consists of many books. all written by different people at different times and places. many of the people didnt know each other. so any reference to another book is most likely unintentional
The old testiment was written long before the new.
You may argue that the new testiment must of being written to forefill prophecys in the old testiment. but the thing is, we know Jesus existed and we know what he did.
Not only from the bible but many roman texts from that time (see, not self referential). So the new testiment is not just a fairy tale written to fit with the old testiment, even though it my seem like that because it fits so well.

The bible also prophisizes the destruction of many nations. all which have happend long after 100 AD

[Numsgil]

Exactly, it's been cared for by a lot of people over a lot of time.  There have been times where it was all but lost, ample opportunity for changes to be made to meet political necessity.

For example, the mention of Cyrus in an old prophecy used to convince Cyrus to free the Jews and let them rebuild their temple.  Awfully convenient, and the Jews of the period were scattered enough that the written records could maybe be altered to meet an immediate need and no one would be the wiser.

There was another time, after a particularly lengthy hedonistic period in Israel (or maybe Judah, I don't remember), where literally no one knew about the records.  A priest found a single copy in the temple.  It is not beyond the imagination that parts of it could have been altered to meet the needs of a newly come to power priesthood.  Specifically, to create a strong sense of nationalism towards the Hebrew religion.

Plus, the documentary hypothesis[url] suggests a time where political necessity required merging differing religious texts into a single new one (probably after the fall of Israel when many Israelites and Levite (ie: priesthood) refugees fled to Judah.  Merging the new arrivals into the existing country was a necessity to prevent a situation like France and the disenfranchised Muslim youth).  It stands to reason that these different Hebrew sects had some disagreements, and the resulting new text cherry picked where necessary to create common ground and forge a unification.

Add to that the New Testament, which in addition to being written well after the death of Jesus and the founding of the Church and the agreement on a core doctrine, was an outlawed book by a renegade sect for hundreds of years.  Take the role of Pontius Pilate, the representative of Rome, who is not only innocent of Jesus's crucifixion, but unmistakably so.  Then take the role of the Sanhedrin, who come across as mustache twisting villains ploting Jesus's downfall.  The Jews weren't all that well liked by the Romans (witness all those rebellions), and Romans like Romans, so maybe the story was altered on paper to make Rome look good and the Jews look bad as a political necessity for the early Church.  Maybe they did it with the understanding that they'd carry on an oral tradition of what really happened, and somewhere along the way all the church leadership was fed to the lions and all that was left were a handful of devout believers and the documents.

Then add to that the nature of the early church.  There were many competing sects, some with quite different interpretations than the Christianity we understand today.  Most notably the Gnostics, with the belief that the God of the old testament was a vindictive son of a bitch, and Christ saved us from Him by overpowering him and taking his place.  When it came time to pick through the circulating religious texts and choose what should be canon and what should be part of the apocrypha, there was a definite agenda in place.  Texts which were against what the church leadership viewed as true were actively destroyed.

Now of course you could view it that God watched out for the Good Book, and He refused to let it come to any detrimental harm, but I can only take that position seriously if you're Catholic or Orthodox Jew.  If you're Protestant, you believe the church became corrupted, and if the church was corrupted why not the Bible?  Likewise if you're a member of one of the reflationary Christian traditions like Jehova's Witness or LDS.

So when it comes down to it there have been too hands in the pie.  I don't think anything's been changed in maybe 1600-1700 years.  The Bible's become too widespread to change much now, beyond translations and the like.  Plus the Protestant tradition of non priests actually owning and reading the Bible means there's just too many copies for changes to occur.  But there were lots of times in the past where there was both opportunity and motive for some well meaning priest to change things to meet the needs of the present time.  Maybe old prophecies were changed slightly to foster belief during times of apostasy.  Maybe new prophecies were added.  Maybe commandments were changed, and details altered.  The end result is a text that has a very evolutionary history, and has changed exactly as much as necessary to be relevant across all those thousands of years to where it is today.

[d-EVO]

maby....
maby not...  

[d-EVO]

D-evo:

1: Believing in multiple gods is not really self-contradictory.

It is (it depends on how you define a god)

2: Why can't you base your beliefs off of pascal's wager? You seem to be basing your beliefs on probabilities...

1 : I never said you couldn't, I said I dont believe you should base your religious stand point [you]only[/you] on pascals wager.

2 : I don't. I simply used probabilities to demonstrate the credability of the bible.
     Believing because of pascals wager [you]is[/you] basing your beliefs on probabilities ...

Anyway, so long as faith isn't perfect knowledge, you'll remain religious in order to have the "insurance policy" that religion brings, not because you know it will make you happier.

1 : religion is not [you]only[/you] an ensurance policy. It is the way you live your life. A product of this [you]may[/you] be happiness

Just FYI, the LDS church does acknowledge that the bible was altered over time, and that this was detrimental to it's spiritual content. That's why Joseph Smith made the JST Bible.

not all churches acknowledge this though, ( even though it is a posability )

[Numsgil]

I'm just saying that it's a strong possibility, so you can't look for material truth of the Bible from within the Bible.  You can look for spiritual truth, believe it's true because of what it contains and judge it solely on its own merits, but if you want to examine it with a more scientific mind you have to take everything inside with a grain of salt.

[bacillus]

You made it sound as though people were too lazy to worship many gods at once, so they chose one and gave him the credit for everything. Not so much a contradiction as an exxageration.
The problem with end-of-the-world prophecies is that no-one pays attention to them, because what do you do against them, and who's going to tell you "I told you so!" afterwards?