If 1 in 10 Americans say they don't believe in God, and the true number may actually be 10x more than previously thought... Doesn't that mean 100% of Americans are atheist??
you are 110% right, my friend that means there are no gods at all or that 100% of Americans believe in a god that fits the discription of the god they heard about and I believe that people think about gods but really what are gods?
I personally go back and forth on this. It isn't so much that I do not believe in god. I suspect the concept of god may be a product of a human world view. i.e. If the universe were a simulation would the being(s) running the simulation be god(s/desses)? Maybe the fundamental nature of the universe is so complex that a god-being could both be defined to exist and not exist in some Godel-incompleteness sense.
If there's an outer universe in which ours was created/came to be, and you follow a realist version of the Copenhagen interpretation, then you could maybe get both created and non-created versions of our Universe.
The modern, rational perspective has not answered the question of "how did we get here?". A divine creator is one of many proposed answers to this ancient question.
Who could answer? If a being created time and space, we, constrained within that time and space, might not have the capacity to imagine what it's like exist outside of them, only that, as the creator, it is possible.
I've always found it hard to believe that any human being that ever lived would even begin to understand the intentions of such an entity. It would be like the ants that you've placed in an ant farm claiming to understand why they were placed in the ant farm in the first place and using that knowledge to control the other ants.
That is why most religions have a revelatory component. Hardly anyone thinks that you could figure out from first principles what God's intentions are. But he can tell you his intentions if he wants to.
At the very least, if God gives us commands, we can understand the commands and obey them. I don't see how you could doubt that's possible (on the hypothesis that God does exist).
But using that as your basis to ignore the question is ignoring the can.
Religion tries to answer the questions on existence, meaning and morality (this is not meant to be defimitively comprehensive). An atheist who calls the religious person a fool for asking a question and finding an answer that still leaves some questions is himself the fool.
Asking the question is fine. Saying "God did it" is just a cop-out though. It's not a real answer. It's basically equivalent to saying "I don't know". Except it's worse, because it means you stop looking for the actual answer.
I've never seen any religious person who was seriously interested in the question of the origin of the universe stop at "God did it". It's unfair to imply that this is all that theologians have ever had to say on the topic.
Ha. That second sentence is exactly what I said as a teenager; I've since found out how ignorant I was.
It's only equivalent to saying "I don't know" if you follow a line like Pascal's Wager, with any sort of faith or conviction you're saying you have established an answer.
The Big Bang is widely accepted yet is by normal definition impossible (you need time in order for something to change, the Big Bang requires a change before time existed). It's a cop out that allows people to curtail metaphysical enquiry at the bounds of known physics ...
People will challenge a theist "who created god" but don't challenge "who/what created the Big Bang". For some reason ex nihilo is fine for the Universe but preposterous for a creator? (The reason is usually a religious reliance on certain assumptions.)
>you stop looking for the actual answer. //
Your petitio principii is showing.
If I find "I get wet standing outside when it rains" I don't need to find a contradictory reason why I'm getting wetted by rain unless the original theory fails. Of course you stop looking and only consider then opposing answers if they present themselves.
When you wake in the morning do you enquire as to the nature of your reality afresh or do you assume it has the same realism as when you went to bed? (Until that realism is challenged?)
The Big Bang is not the equivalent of "God did it". It's not a cop-out, it's a description of what our current understanding says happened. And yes, there's a lot we still don't know, and a lot we can never know. And that's ok! We don't just pretend that we have an explanation for everything (which is what "God did it" is), we say what we do know and what we don't, and then we try to reduce the amount we don't know.
You're declaring the Big Bang to be impossible due to what appears to be a simple semantic trick. But I don't believe you're even remotely qualified to determine whether the Big Bang is impossible or not, and the fact that it's widely accepted as a good explanation should be a big clue that maybe it's not so impossible.
> If I find "I get wet standing outside when it rains" I don't need to find a contradictory reason why I'm getting wetted by rain unless the original theory fails.
"God did it" is not a theory. It is the absence of a theory. It's what you say because you don't know the actual reason. For example, a thousand years ago, "God did it" was probably a well-accepted explanation for why it rains. But today we have a very detailed understanding of the physics involved and can explain rain without any supernatural explanation. You can't say that somehow in the last 1000 years, God stopped managing rain and physics started handling it instead. No, it was physics all along.
A big problem with "God did it" is it literally stops all progress. If you say "I don't know", you can go looking for the answer. If you have an actual hypothesis, you can test it, try to determine if it's true or not, and make progress towards finding the truth. But once you say "God did it" there's no where left to go, and you have no hope of ever finding out the real reason.
> People will challenge a theist "who created god" but don't challenge "who/what created the Big Bang". For some reason ex nihilo is fine for the Universe but preposterous for a creator?
The big bang and what (if anything) cause it does get challenged and is challenged by serious scientists too. The current answer is we have absolutely no idea.
On the other hand, it's rare to see religous people acknowledge that gods (there is no logical reason for a single god) require a creator at all, it's a thought terminating proposition.
Assuming a god like figure can exist, why would you assume only one can exist? 10 or 50 or a billion sounds just as Logical as one. God knows our universe would make more sense if it was designed by committee.
Aside from that, given what we know about human evolution and how not unique we are, it stands to reason that a creator was subject to similar limitations.
I have not met the person saying it as a cop-out. In my experience they say God did it and tell us about him.
It's only a cop-out if they say it to avoid looking into reasons for the explanation. The religious people I know, myself included, have well established and agreed upon reasons.
Just because you disagree with their conclusions and reasons for them, it's ridiculous to call it a cop-out.
If there's an ultimate explanation for the existence of the universe, the explanation has to stop somewhere. From a cosmological point of view, the properties of God are just the properties that any such terminus would have to have in order to be a terminus. Anything that comes from something else isn't God, so the question of where God comes from is moot.
Uh, we got here because a smart primate species evolved on a planet that formed around a heavy-element-rich star about a dozen billion years after this universe emerged from the inflationary paradigm? There's a couple gaps, I'll grant you, but science has this question pretty well covered, all considered.
Ah, but it does change. Given that big bang theory tells us the universe has a beginning, it's not unreasonable to think that something greater than the universe must have created it. One might be curious to see the intentions of this being, if possible :)
Yet I only see people advocating for a single creator. That makes me think their reasoning is grounded more in their beliefs than any honest attempt at reasoning.
I don't have a religion or a personal God, so by definition I'm atheist, but I'm also open to using the term God as a metaphor for a creating force (anything that initiated the universe) which puts me in the new-age-y spirituality and agnostic camps but doesn't anthropomorphise a God, define my moral code or add magical/superstitious decorations. My moral code is based around the Golden Rule, but not because someone or something said I should - it's because it's logical and purest form of fairness.
So perhaps a lot more people come under the Humanist umbrella, which generally share the same beliefs and moral codes when applied to the world around them, whether they possess a belief in a non-anthropomorphised God or not. That aspect of belief is just semantic.
>My moral code is based around the Golden Rule, but not because someone or something said I should - it's because it's logical and purest form of fairness.
No it's not logical, it's completely irrational. If someone has something you want, and there is no way to get it, the rational thing to do is kill them and take it. If we wish to kill him while still being in a society where we won't get killed ourselves the solution is to kill them in secret in a method that makes it as likely as possible that you won't get caught while publicly supporting laws forbidding murder.
Saying that morality is rational is a cop-out answer.
If morality were rational we would live in a world where people rarely do anything immoral because they realize it would be irrational to do so. The reason morality is even an issue is because immoral actions are rational where we can derive a benefit from them and not face consequences (either because we are very unlikely to get caught or there is no consequence for getting caught.)
The golden rule is nice and all but it is most certainly not a rational principle - as evidenced by the fact that neither Jesus nor any of its other proponents have every tried to offer up rational justifications for it. Instead it was justified with "I'm God, do as I say," and that was the only justification ever offered for it.
Even just now, you claimed it was rational but didn't even even attempt to give logical arguments in support of it. You merely asserted it was "the purest form of fairness" without either explaining why. Most definitions of fairness would find "eye for an eye" to be fair, fairness requires good for good and evil for evil. The Golden rule is not fair.
Also fairness, while something that many people value, is not a logical principle, we do not derive the value of fairness from logical reasoning but human feelings. . . The universe and the world is rarely fair and the desire for fairness is often contrary to sound reason.
> If we wish to kill him while still being in a society where we won't get killed ourselves kill them in secret in a method that makes it as likely as possible that you won't get caught while publicly supporting laws forbidding murder.
If this was normalised then there would be more murdering and we would still be more likely to be murdered ourselves. It's rational that we don't want the world to be like this.
But we don't have to normalize every thing we do. This whole "act in a way that everything you do will become normalized" doesn't work because the rational person realizes that not everything they do will be normalized and acts accordingly.
This can be found in Neithzche's philosophy when he talks about master and slave ethics. Neithzche said that slaves will follow what custom dictates, but masters will make their own ethics. This seems abhorrent to me, however, in a world without a God dictating things and a hell for bad people, I must admit it is rational.
Also the "act in a way that you would will all your actions be normalized" has already been proposed by Kant and has shown to not be workable as an ethical system. (Here's an article explaining why
Killing somebody needs great effort. Killing somebody secretly requires even greater effort. In addition killing involves large risk of getting killed instead. The risk increases when this practice becomes more common.
It is simply easier and considerably less risky not do something like this. But there still exists people who argue similarly to your ideas and act based on them. These people are called murderous psychopaths.
> No it's not logical, it's completely irrational.
Are you suggesting that the Golden Rule must be a divine law because it couldn't come from human reasoning alone? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or in simpler, less frilly terms treat others as you would want them to treat you is a basic form of preemptive reciprocity which even monkeys can grasp. Using deductive reasoning: if we can devise something as complex as language to describe our ideas, we can devise simple maxims.
> If someone has something you want, and there is no way to get it, the rational thing to do is kill them and take it.
In a constrained game-theory setting where 1.) there are only two players and 2.) it's something critical to remaining alive and it can't be shared, then you might have an argument. But squishy reality doesn't play well with half thought out game theory scenarios. If everyone did what you suggest, we'd all be dead. Instead we cooperate because we're gifted with theory of mind.
> If morality were rational we would live in a world where people rarely do anything immoral because they realize it would be irrational to do so.
Faulty reasoning - your position assumes all people are rational all of the time. We're bags of chemicals which in optimal conditions can be rational. Thankfully we have mechanisms to record our thoughts, including the odd rational ones we have which can then stand up to the test of time and consideration.
>Are you suggesting that the Golden Rule must be a divine law because it couldn't come from human reasoning alone?
No Im saying there is no rational reason to choose golden rule over lying, cheating and pillaging.
>But squishy reality doesn't play well with half thought out game theory scenarios. If everyone did what you suggest, we'd all be dead.
But we dont live in that world where everyone does as I suggest. We live in a world where most people dont lie cheat or kill, and thus its rational to lie cheat and kill while maintaining the reasonable belief that others wont copy us.
Some people, like those in severely war torn countries where there is little or no government do live in a world where many people do lie cheat and kill. In absolutely 0 cases have humans in that circumstance chosen the supposedly rational path advocated here. In fact, in that circumstance, the supposedly rational path of not killing in hopes that others won`t wont kill you seems naive and foolish.
>Faulty reasoning - your position assumes all people are rational all of the time. We're bags of chemicals which in optimal conditions can be rational.
Maybe but we do make rational decisions most of the time, we dont need people forcing us to behave rationally because thats sort of the default. If someone offers ice cream for 1 $ and I offer the same ice cream for $ 100 people will rationally choose my neighbors ice cream. This is rational.
How about stealing or hitting, do we have to teach kids that or do they come to it by reason? Imagine a kid who is never punished for lying or hitting other kids, will he or she naturally derive that its wrong through reason.
>> Are you suggesting that the Golden Rule must be a divine law because it couldn't come from human reasoning alone?
> No Im saying there is no rational reason to choose golden rule over lying, cheating and pillaging.
Then you'd fail at any game theory scenarios with a player base larger than 2.
> But we dont live in that world where everyone does as I suggest.
Circular and somewhat nonsensical reasoning. Yes, we live in a world where most people cooperate and some don't. I never made claims otherwise. Just because some people act irrationally doesn't invalidate the claim that the Golden Rule is logical.
> do we have to teach kids that or do they come to it by reason?
You're making the error of suggesting I posited that logic is innate in all people and even at the earliest stages in life - I never made that claim. What I am willing to assert: we can learn things, and humans can build mental frameworks which can be transferred to others by speech and text.
>Circular and somewhat nonsensical reasoning. Yes, we live in a world where most people cooperate and some don't. I never made claims otherwise. Just because some people act irrationally doesn't invalidate the claim that the Golden Rule is logical.
You seem to have missed the point. I was responding to your objection that if everyone killed we would all be in trouble so we shouldnt kill ourselves.
My response was that we dont live in a world where everyone lies cheats and kills and there is no reasonable risk of others following my example if do lie cheat and kill. The mere fact that I kill someone wont create a world where everyone kills so your point about not wanting to live in such a world is moot.
> your point about not wanting to live in such a world is moot
I never made a point about not wanting to live in any kind of world. Please quote the exact piece of text where I said such a thing.
The original argument, made by you, was that the Golden Rule wasn't logical as I suggested. What you possibly meant to say is that it isn't innate -- as in something present in all of us from birth. I never posited that the Golden Rule is innate.
Logic doesn't require all of humanity to follow it, to flow only within its boundaries like a fleshy stream, to validate it. It exists in spite of us.
>I never made a point about not wanting to live in any kind of world. Please quote the exact piece of text where I said such a thing.
your initial reply:
>If everyone did what you suggest, we'd all be dead. Instead we cooperate because we're gifted with theory of mind.
This is moot because not everyone is doing as I suggest. A murderer doesn't think "wait, if I kill, that might lead to a world in which everyone would kill" because that's ridiculous and it won't happen.
Seeing as that's the only reason you can provide for the golden rule, and it's not a very logical reason, we can conclude that following the golden rule is not rational, regardless of whether it is innate.
>And you present a bait-and-switch argument. Just because a killer is irrational doesn't mean the Golden Rule isn't logical.
I'm not seeing the logical flow, perhaps you can point it out to me:
John wants Tim's wife, Marcy. Marcy is not happy with Tim, and she is in love with John. However, John knows that Marcy will never marry him while married to Tim.
One day John and Tim are out for a Swim in the lake and Tim begins to Drown. John can save him but decides not to knowing that he will never get caught for the murder. After letting Tim die, John seduces his wife.
Before the murder, John has a consideration "wait, if everyone killed, that would lead to an unpleasant world where I may get killed myself." Then John comes to his senses and realizes:
1. No one is going to find out so it is impossible that my actions will influence anybody.
2. This consideration of what happens if everyone kills is not relevant to my current act of killing Tim as killing Tim is very unlikely to result in everyone killing.
Thus, John realizes it is advantageous to kill Tim and John and Marcy live happily every after.
Please point out to me the logical (not moral, but logical ) flaw in John's reasoning:
You forget one thing: people are hardwired to get stressed when telling lies, and other people can caught the lie. And plenty of people will constantly ask: is what you propose fair?
So, add to your calculations that you can not deceive all the people around you all the time. Your own biology will betray you.
And this is yet another danger of a powerful AI. It will be able to lie to us. With total impunity.
The definition of believing in God can get murky. If asked "do you believe in God" many people will say yes. . . but when the belief is tested the numbers become much smaller. For example if you believe that God exists and rewards those who follow his commandments, people should tithe continuously on the belief that God and not financial well-being will provide for their future. However, when you look at it, very very few people tithe out of their own volition. This is true so much so that some denominations have made tithing mandatory and started tracking it. Take away the tracking and tithing becomes miniscule. As do serious giving to the poor, charity, dong your best to stay away from masturbation and things forbidden by God that people may not find out about.
People blame modernity and science on the decline of faith, but I am relatively certain that this trend would hold true in the past. We can see this in historical events like the Catholic church accepting money for indulgences, an absolute no-no if you believe in a higher power, but perfectly acceptable if you are going about the Earthly task of building a working social institution.
People have always used religion as sort of a fashion, a show of social virtue. Very few people have actually used it to seek God. So I think when you find those who would simply say "yes" when asked if they believe in God, the number will be high. Those who attend church will also be a high number.
But when you look for people who take even the simplest, smallest and most minimal steps consistent with the belief in a higher power who wrote the bible, the numbers become smaller.
This applies across religions. For example, I was shocked when talking to Muslims about their faith and why the follow it. Their most common answer is "it provides for the social order." Which is an absolutely bizzare reason to follow a faith. If God exists and told you to do something wouldn't it make sense to do it even if it was not consistent with the Social order. This theme plays out among all religions. Most people do it to maintain the social order and appear as virtuous people.
There are a few people who are there actually seeking God. These people are few and far between and I suspect much smaller than anything anyone would have guessed.
fivethirtyeight.com, weren't these the folks that predicted Hillary winning in a landslide? I'll read this article with a grain of salt.
edit: Not sure why this is being downvoted. I'm just pointing out that the title is misleading and maybe should be changed to "Way More Americans May Be Atheists Than We Thought, Or Not". I think "An Analysis of Atheists in America" would be a more appropriate title.
I recommend taking some time to read what they publish rather than what you may have heard they publish. 538 consistently pushes for proper interpretation of stats and predictions—particularly uncertainty percentages, which is often not the case in other publications, even those that reproduce stats sourced from 538.
In particular, the primary numbers 538 published for the 2016 election were chances of winning, which can easily be misinterpreted as percentage of the vote. As of Nov 8, they had Clinton having a 71% chance of winning (with Trump at 27%), with 302 electoral votes, and 48.5% of the popular vote. This isn't a landslide prediction, and the 71% chance of winning is much lower than what was reported in many other publications.
In the submitted article, they're quite careful in their language in support of the title, which purposefully includes the operative word "may". This is in keeping with what I've come to expect from 538.
This sort of assumes that the people themselves know if they believe in god. People are often in denial of their own feelings, or flip back and forth. Plenty of priests will happily tell you about their personal doubts that god exists.
Based on living in Tornado Alley for the past 20+ years, the one thing I can safely claim is that if there is a God with omnipotent powers, it hates trailer parks.
A big part of the problem is public misunderstanding about what it means to be an atheist. When people find out I'm an atheist, they often take it as a personal attack on their belief in god. Coming out of the closet as an atheist opened me up to all sorts of social problems. People defriended me on facebook, others started attacking me in comments, and I still get books from relatives who think I'm an idiot for not believing in god.
But I don't walk around all day thinking, "There's no god." The concept of god simply isn't something that ever factors into my thinking. I believe in science, rationality, the Enlightenment. I believe in all the human beings all over the world who I rely on and who make my life wonderful.
But I am also painfully aware of "Religious Privilege" in America. I must carry the words, "In God We Trust" on my money. My children are forced to pledge allegiance, "Under God" every morning at school. At the Coast Guard base where I used to work as a contractor, our group lunches and other gatherings were opened with a prayer to "Our Lord Jesus Christ." I was even asked to resign from our moral committee shortly after I requested we change our "Christmas Party" to a "Holiday Party."
Is it any wonder people are reluctant to admit they don't believe in god?
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadGood thought, I like it.
Religion tries to answer the questions on existence, meaning and morality (this is not meant to be defimitively comprehensive). An atheist who calls the religious person a fool for asking a question and finding an answer that still leaves some questions is himself the fool.
It's only equivalent to saying "I don't know" if you follow a line like Pascal's Wager, with any sort of faith or conviction you're saying you have established an answer.
The Big Bang is widely accepted yet is by normal definition impossible (you need time in order for something to change, the Big Bang requires a change before time existed). It's a cop out that allows people to curtail metaphysical enquiry at the bounds of known physics ...
People will challenge a theist "who created god" but don't challenge "who/what created the Big Bang". For some reason ex nihilo is fine for the Universe but preposterous for a creator? (The reason is usually a religious reliance on certain assumptions.)
>you stop looking for the actual answer. //
Your petitio principii is showing.
If I find "I get wet standing outside when it rains" I don't need to find a contradictory reason why I'm getting wetted by rain unless the original theory fails. Of course you stop looking and only consider then opposing answers if they present themselves.
When you wake in the morning do you enquire as to the nature of your reality afresh or do you assume it has the same realism as when you went to bed? (Until that realism is challenged?)
You're declaring the Big Bang to be impossible due to what appears to be a simple semantic trick. But I don't believe you're even remotely qualified to determine whether the Big Bang is impossible or not, and the fact that it's widely accepted as a good explanation should be a big clue that maybe it's not so impossible.
> If I find "I get wet standing outside when it rains" I don't need to find a contradictory reason why I'm getting wetted by rain unless the original theory fails.
"God did it" is not a theory. It is the absence of a theory. It's what you say because you don't know the actual reason. For example, a thousand years ago, "God did it" was probably a well-accepted explanation for why it rains. But today we have a very detailed understanding of the physics involved and can explain rain without any supernatural explanation. You can't say that somehow in the last 1000 years, God stopped managing rain and physics started handling it instead. No, it was physics all along.
A big problem with "God did it" is it literally stops all progress. If you say "I don't know", you can go looking for the answer. If you have an actual hypothesis, you can test it, try to determine if it's true or not, and make progress towards finding the truth. But once you say "God did it" there's no where left to go, and you have no hope of ever finding out the real reason.
The big bang and what (if anything) cause it does get challenged and is challenged by serious scientists too. The current answer is we have absolutely no idea.
On the other hand, it's rare to see religous people acknowledge that gods (there is no logical reason for a single god) require a creator at all, it's a thought terminating proposition.
Which sounds like you're suggesting there is a logical reason for multiple gods, can you expand on this point?
Aside from that, given what we know about human evolution and how not unique we are, it stands to reason that a creator was subject to similar limitations.
It's only a cop-out if they say it to avoid looking into reasons for the explanation. The religious people I know, myself included, have well established and agreed upon reasons.
Just because you disagree with their conclusions and reasons for them, it's ridiculous to call it a cop-out.
Not really. It could be that the universe has existed for an infinite amount of time, and the big bang was an event that occurs from time to time.
No matter what explanation you pick, something came from "nothingness" at some point, which suggests nothingness has some unusual properties.
That is a scenario where there is no ultimate explanation.
Why only one? What logical reason is there to think that there is only a single god like being?
On the other hand, how can one assume that god has any particular property, such as even being countable?
So perhaps a lot more people come under the Humanist umbrella, which generally share the same beliefs and moral codes when applied to the world around them, whether they possess a belief in a non-anthropomorphised God or not. That aspect of belief is just semantic.
No it's not logical, it's completely irrational. If someone has something you want, and there is no way to get it, the rational thing to do is kill them and take it. If we wish to kill him while still being in a society where we won't get killed ourselves the solution is to kill them in secret in a method that makes it as likely as possible that you won't get caught while publicly supporting laws forbidding murder.
Saying that morality is rational is a cop-out answer. If morality were rational we would live in a world where people rarely do anything immoral because they realize it would be irrational to do so. The reason morality is even an issue is because immoral actions are rational where we can derive a benefit from them and not face consequences (either because we are very unlikely to get caught or there is no consequence for getting caught.)
The golden rule is nice and all but it is most certainly not a rational principle - as evidenced by the fact that neither Jesus nor any of its other proponents have every tried to offer up rational justifications for it. Instead it was justified with "I'm God, do as I say," and that was the only justification ever offered for it.
Even just now, you claimed it was rational but didn't even even attempt to give logical arguments in support of it. You merely asserted it was "the purest form of fairness" without either explaining why. Most definitions of fairness would find "eye for an eye" to be fair, fairness requires good for good and evil for evil. The Golden rule is not fair.
Also fairness, while something that many people value, is not a logical principle, we do not derive the value of fairness from logical reasoning but human feelings. . . The universe and the world is rarely fair and the desire for fairness is often contrary to sound reason.
If this was normalised then there would be more murdering and we would still be more likely to be murdered ourselves. It's rational that we don't want the world to be like this.
This can be found in Neithzche's philosophy when he talks about master and slave ethics. Neithzche said that slaves will follow what custom dictates, but masters will make their own ethics. This seems abhorrent to me, however, in a world without a God dictating things and a hell for bad people, I must admit it is rational.
Also the "act in a way that you would will all your actions be normalized" has already been proposed by Kant and has shown to not be workable as an ethical system. (Here's an article explaining why
https://tigerpapers.net/2011/10/21/kants-morality/)
It is simply easier and considerably less risky not do something like this. But there still exists people who argue similarly to your ideas and act based on them. These people are called murderous psychopaths.
Are you suggesting that the Golden Rule must be a divine law because it couldn't come from human reasoning alone? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or in simpler, less frilly terms treat others as you would want them to treat you is a basic form of preemptive reciprocity which even monkeys can grasp. Using deductive reasoning: if we can devise something as complex as language to describe our ideas, we can devise simple maxims.
> If someone has something you want, and there is no way to get it, the rational thing to do is kill them and take it.
In a constrained game-theory setting where 1.) there are only two players and 2.) it's something critical to remaining alive and it can't be shared, then you might have an argument. But squishy reality doesn't play well with half thought out game theory scenarios. If everyone did what you suggest, we'd all be dead. Instead we cooperate because we're gifted with theory of mind.
> If morality were rational we would live in a world where people rarely do anything immoral because they realize it would be irrational to do so.
Faulty reasoning - your position assumes all people are rational all of the time. We're bags of chemicals which in optimal conditions can be rational. Thankfully we have mechanisms to record our thoughts, including the odd rational ones we have which can then stand up to the test of time and consideration.
No Im saying there is no rational reason to choose golden rule over lying, cheating and pillaging.
>But squishy reality doesn't play well with half thought out game theory scenarios. If everyone did what you suggest, we'd all be dead.
But we dont live in that world where everyone does as I suggest. We live in a world where most people dont lie cheat or kill, and thus its rational to lie cheat and kill while maintaining the reasonable belief that others wont copy us.
Some people, like those in severely war torn countries where there is little or no government do live in a world where many people do lie cheat and kill. In absolutely 0 cases have humans in that circumstance chosen the supposedly rational path advocated here. In fact, in that circumstance, the supposedly rational path of not killing in hopes that others won`t wont kill you seems naive and foolish.
>Faulty reasoning - your position assumes all people are rational all of the time. We're bags of chemicals which in optimal conditions can be rational.
Maybe but we do make rational decisions most of the time, we dont need people forcing us to behave rationally because thats sort of the default. If someone offers ice cream for 1 $ and I offer the same ice cream for $ 100 people will rationally choose my neighbors ice cream. This is rational.
How about stealing or hitting, do we have to teach kids that or do they come to it by reason? Imagine a kid who is never punished for lying or hitting other kids, will he or she naturally derive that its wrong through reason.
> No Im saying there is no rational reason to choose golden rule over lying, cheating and pillaging.
Then you'd fail at any game theory scenarios with a player base larger than 2.
> But we dont live in that world where everyone does as I suggest.
Circular and somewhat nonsensical reasoning. Yes, we live in a world where most people cooperate and some don't. I never made claims otherwise. Just because some people act irrationally doesn't invalidate the claim that the Golden Rule is logical.
> do we have to teach kids that or do they come to it by reason?
You're making the error of suggesting I posited that logic is innate in all people and even at the earliest stages in life - I never made that claim. What I am willing to assert: we can learn things, and humans can build mental frameworks which can be transferred to others by speech and text.
You seem to have missed the point. I was responding to your objection that if everyone killed we would all be in trouble so we shouldnt kill ourselves.
My response was that we dont live in a world where everyone lies cheats and kills and there is no reasonable risk of others following my example if do lie cheat and kill. The mere fact that I kill someone wont create a world where everyone kills so your point about not wanting to live in such a world is moot.
I never made a point about not wanting to live in any kind of world. Please quote the exact piece of text where I said such a thing.
The original argument, made by you, was that the Golden Rule wasn't logical as I suggested. What you possibly meant to say is that it isn't innate -- as in something present in all of us from birth. I never posited that the Golden Rule is innate.
Logic doesn't require all of humanity to follow it, to flow only within its boundaries like a fleshy stream, to validate it. It exists in spite of us.
your initial reply:
>If everyone did what you suggest, we'd all be dead. Instead we cooperate because we're gifted with theory of mind.
This is moot because not everyone is doing as I suggest. A murderer doesn't think "wait, if I kill, that might lead to a world in which everyone would kill" because that's ridiculous and it won't happen.
Seeing as that's the only reason you can provide for the golden rule, and it's not a very logical reason, we can conclude that following the golden rule is not rational, regardless of whether it is innate.
> > I never made a point about not wanting to live in any kind of world. Please quote the exact piece of text where I said such a thing.
> your initial reply:
> > > > If everyone did what you suggest, we'd all be dead. Instead we cooperate because we're gifted with theory of mind.
You've failed to demonstrate what I asked: quote the text where I mentioned not wanting to live in such a world
> A murderer doesn't think "wait, if I kill, that might lead to a world in which everyone would kill"
And you present a bait-and-switch argument. Just because a killer is irrational doesn't mean the Golden Rule isn't logical.
I'm not seeing the logical flow, perhaps you can point it out to me:
John wants Tim's wife, Marcy. Marcy is not happy with Tim, and she is in love with John. However, John knows that Marcy will never marry him while married to Tim.
One day John and Tim are out for a Swim in the lake and Tim begins to Drown. John can save him but decides not to knowing that he will never get caught for the murder. After letting Tim die, John seduces his wife.
Before the murder, John has a consideration "wait, if everyone killed, that would lead to an unpleasant world where I may get killed myself." Then John comes to his senses and realizes:
1. No one is going to find out so it is impossible that my actions will influence anybody.
2. This consideration of what happens if everyone kills is not relevant to my current act of killing Tim as killing Tim is very unlikely to result in everyone killing.
Thus, John realizes it is advantageous to kill Tim and John and Marcy live happily every after.
Please point out to me the logical (not moral, but logical ) flaw in John's reasoning:
So, add to your calculations that you can not deceive all the people around you all the time. Your own biology will betray you.
And this is yet another danger of a powerful AI. It will be able to lie to us. With total impunity.
People blame modernity and science on the decline of faith, but I am relatively certain that this trend would hold true in the past. We can see this in historical events like the Catholic church accepting money for indulgences, an absolute no-no if you believe in a higher power, but perfectly acceptable if you are going about the Earthly task of building a working social institution.
People have always used religion as sort of a fashion, a show of social virtue. Very few people have actually used it to seek God. So I think when you find those who would simply say "yes" when asked if they believe in God, the number will be high. Those who attend church will also be a high number.
But when you look for people who take even the simplest, smallest and most minimal steps consistent with the belief in a higher power who wrote the bible, the numbers become smaller.
This applies across religions. For example, I was shocked when talking to Muslims about their faith and why the follow it. Their most common answer is "it provides for the social order." Which is an absolutely bizzare reason to follow a faith. If God exists and told you to do something wouldn't it make sense to do it even if it was not consistent with the Social order. This theme plays out among all religions. Most people do it to maintain the social order and appear as virtuous people.
There are a few people who are there actually seeking God. These people are few and far between and I suspect much smaller than anything anyone would have guessed.
edit: Not sure why this is being downvoted. I'm just pointing out that the title is misleading and maybe should be changed to "Way More Americans May Be Atheists Than We Thought, Or Not". I think "An Analysis of Atheists in America" would be a more appropriate title.
In particular, the primary numbers 538 published for the 2016 election were chances of winning, which can easily be misinterpreted as percentage of the vote. As of Nov 8, they had Clinton having a 71% chance of winning (with Trump at 27%), with 302 electoral votes, and 48.5% of the popular vote. This isn't a landslide prediction, and the 71% chance of winning is much lower than what was reported in many other publications.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
In the submitted article, they're quite careful in their language in support of the title, which purposefully includes the operative word "may". This is in keeping with what I've come to expect from 538.
But I don't walk around all day thinking, "There's no god." The concept of god simply isn't something that ever factors into my thinking. I believe in science, rationality, the Enlightenment. I believe in all the human beings all over the world who I rely on and who make my life wonderful.
But I am also painfully aware of "Religious Privilege" in America. I must carry the words, "In God We Trust" on my money. My children are forced to pledge allegiance, "Under God" every morning at school. At the Coast Guard base where I used to work as a contractor, our group lunches and other gatherings were opened with a prayer to "Our Lord Jesus Christ." I was even asked to resign from our moral committee shortly after I requested we change our "Christmas Party" to a "Holiday Party."
Is it any wonder people are reluctant to admit they don't believe in god?