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Possible Evidence of Chimp Temples and "Proto-Religious" Rituals- VIDEO

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posted on Mar, 9 2016 @ 01:15 PM
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a reply to: Barcs

Barcs.

Here is some history on Egyptian religion. www.ancient.eu...

Provide sources on large engineering feats that were done 2000 years ago that were not religious based.

I am sure you thought you won the debates but there are rules to debates if your in a formal one and they get reviewed by peers usually afterword. I seriously doubt you beat any actual apologists in debates. They are trained in universities to have debates on God.

Hitchins went down in a blaze of glory when he debated Craig. Not by my opinion by his peers opinions. Sure Harris was able to debate him well but he didn't make the errors you are making in debates either.

Empericists were philosophers. Hume, Locke, Newton etc. They were not cut and dry engineers. They still understood how to process arguements in your mind without having to have it be regid math. There are many topics that don't do well in science.

I will ask you again have you read anything by Robert Bella? He is one of if not the experts on this very subject. An expert peer reviewed and considered a giant in sociology. He is also not religious at all in fact most likely a soft atheist. Read his books and you may change your mind. I can't exactly post 100 of times to explain this thoroughly.

Also I was referring to social and technical evolution not actual DNA though I am sure this is effected over time when your environment goes from starving and seeking food to living in cities.

I can't have this circular arguement anymore. If you actually believe what you are saying that a priest and the life of Mendel was not governed by his faith your rediculous. His thoughts were effected by his faith. He was a PRIEST. Thats well beyound a laypersons dealing with God.

Your Moore's law rebuttle is juvenile. Computers are the reason technology is advancing so fast. I thought that was a given but I guess not.

Digital electronics have contributed to world economic growth in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.[12] Moore's law describes a driving force of technological and social change, productivity, and economic growth.[13][14][15][16]

The country was founded by people highly skeptical of religion. Thomas J even rewrote a bible without miracles because he thought they were absurd. We have been non religious since it was formed. That is why we have led the world.
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posted on Mar, 9 2016 @ 02:52 PM
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a reply to: PhotonEffect

In nearly ever ancient culture where there are unknowns and inexplicable artifacts and whatever found during excavations, there's generally a tendency to call them ritualistic or religious items, and I just find it to be a lazy way to explain away things that are unknown.

Survival isn't the only thing that animals focus on 24/7. Many animals in the animal kingdom do things for pleasure or fun or seemingly inexplicable reasons.

That's all I'm trying to say.



posted on Mar, 9 2016 @ 03:18 PM
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originally posted by: luthier
Here is some history on Egyptian religion. www.ancient.eu...


Please quote me the relevant part, I don't have time to read the entire thing. I did not ask for a general history lesson on Egypt, I'm familiar with that. I specifically asked you for the quotes that come from the religion (PREDATING THE PYRAMIDS) about designing pyramids and measurements to use. You seem very reluctant to comply with this basic request. If I'm wrong I'll eat crow. I have no problem with that.

Thank you.


I am sure you thought you won the debates but there are rules to debates if your in a formal one and they get reviewed by peers usually afterword. I seriously doubt you beat any actual apologists in debates. They are trained in universities to have debates on God.


Who has trained in universities to have debates on God? Certainly not anybody I've debated with. I didn't say I debated any FAMOUS apologist. Apologists are everywhere, no special training needed. The majority of them do not debate, they dictate false things to be true and use straw mans. Calling it a debate is very generous. It's more like a rant.


Hitchins went down in a blaze of glory when he debated Craig. Not by my opinion by his peers opinions. Sure Harris was able to debate him well but he didn't make the errors you are making in debates either.


Errors such as?


Also I was referring to social and technical evolution not actual DNA though I am sure this is effected over time when your environment goes from starving and seeking food to living in cities.


Okay, so you are not talking about biological evolution, merely change over time. Gotcha.


I can't have this circular arguement anymore. If you actually believe what you are saying that a priest and the life of Mendel was not governed by his faith your rediculous. His thoughts were effected by his faith. He was a PRIEST. Thats well beyound a laypersons dealing with God.


Nothing you said proves that belief in god was necessary for him to figure out genetics. Your argument is based on pure assumption. It is only circular because you keep repeating the premise instead of responding to my points.


Your Moore's law rebuttle is juvenile. Computers are the reason technology is advancing so fast. I thought that was a given but I guess not.


Juvenile? I guess when your argument gets utterly demolished it will make you feel that way, but my rebuttal was dead on. You are seriously cracking me up here. You said that technology increases fast because of Moore's law and now you are doing all kinds of backtracking to try to justify it. That argument was dead wrong, no way around it. Moore's law is about circuitry and doesn't CAUSE technology to increase faster. It is an observation of how fast it is going. (plus it has slowed down). You completely misused Moore's law in your argument.


Digital electronics have contributed to world economic growth in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.[12] Moore's law describes a driving force of technological and social change, productivity, and economic growth.[13][14][15][16]


No kidding technology affects social change and economic growth. Moore's law does not. It is an observation based originally on transistors on the circuit board. We went through a technology boom. It is coming to an end. It's not a real law anymore than Murphy's law.

Religion not being forced into the process, is a much bigger reason, IMO. Just 20 years ago embryonic stem cell research was completely illegal because of religious reasons. Religion SLOWS DOWN development, it doesn't boost it or cause it. I'd argue that we would have had this boom 1000 years ago if not for religion dictating their version of truth as absolute fact and discouraging people from objective analysis (ie Galileo).

Again, I'm not saying religion has no influence. I'm saying that it isn't the primary reason for those developments that you referred to. It may influence specific designs (ie statues built in the likeness of gods), but it didn't cause architecture, or the origins of any of those things you mentioned.

Food for thought:

The tower of babel story:

God is upset with the people of babel because they want to build a structure to represent their legacy. They want it to be huge and last for eons and be viewable for hundreds of miles. It specifically says that if humans are allowed to finish this, they will soon be able to achieve the "impossible", therefor god confuses their language to avoid this from happening. The misconception is that they were trying to get to heaven. This is really just religion dictating that people should not strive to do what is currently thought of as impossible. Basically follow the status quo, don't do new things out of pride, don't learn new things, do what god says and nothing more.

This is a direct correlation with religion holding back folks of that era from designing new things and making new technology. It was frowned upon by god.
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posted on Mar, 9 2016 @ 05:05 PM
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a reply to: Barcs

Your arguements are pathetic

Clearly the definition from wiki states mores law effected technology advancements in a profound way. My brother is a particle physicists who does weather modelling he couldn't do his work at all without the equipment.

It is a fact not an assumption that priests work in the service of God only. That the divine inspires and drives a priest. To say that played nobpart in his work is just obtuse.

I am not siting anything for you the article on egyptian religion starts off first paragraph that it was part science. Read it or not. I don't care. It's there for anyone else who wants to see how you just argue from emotions .

Judiasm is one form of religion and I guess you don't understand what the story is telling. It isn't about anything we are talking about.

Christian Apologists are in fact trained philosophers and many universities teach the arguements for God. Maybe you misuse or misunderstand the word. Anslem and Craig and Aquinas those are Christian apologists. Trinity and Wheaton college for instance both teach apologists how to create valid arguements. If the person you were debating was not a theologist he was not an apologist. Period.

Once again I said religion in the ancient world not today or even the recent past. So that while paragraph is useless.

You have a knack for strawmans.

Abrahamics are not the only religions.

Not everything can be proven by hard science man. Give it up. Study some sociology and humanities. You keep making uniformed arguments on these subjects?

I have you a leading sociologist who wrote numerous books on religion throughout evolution.

I also asked to show these grand non religious engineering master works from 2000 + years ago. Let's compair them to the religious emperical evidence.



posted on Mar, 10 2016 @ 12:19 PM
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originally posted by: luthier
Clearly the definition from wiki states mores law effected technology advancements in a profound way. My brother is a particle physicists who does weather modelling he couldn't do his work at all without the equipment.


By all means, break it down and show me how Moore's law directly affects anything related to technology. It is not a scientific law. It is an observation of the rate of change. It's not that complicated. Moore's law does not cause anything, in itself. Don't call my arguments pathetic when you have offered nothing to counter them. I don't care about your brother, that is a red herring. What does Moore's law have to do with his equipment?


It is a fact not an assumption that priests work in the service of God only. That the divine inspires and drives a priest. To say that played nobpart in his work is just obtuse.


Again, just because he is working in the service of god only, does not mean that all his personal ambition, scientific work, passion, drive, and intelligence gets attributed to religion. Crediting religion for that is patently false. If it was just the religion, then there would have been millions of other priests and religious people all discovering the same stuff due to god's inspiration, but that wasn't the case.

You are forcing the square peg in the round hole again. You are arguing something that is completely subjective but you are acting like your opinion is concrete. It's not.


I am not siting anything for you the article on egyptian religion starts off first paragraph that it was part science. Read it or not. I don't care. It's there for anyone else who wants to see how you just argue from emotions .


Too funny. You make quite a bit of accusations for a guy that barely understands what a logical argument is in a debate or how to offer a citation when requested. I have not once argued out of emotion, why can't you focus on the argument instead of constantly making it personal. Your first line of the post speaks volumes.


Judiasm is one form of religion and I guess you don't understand what the story is telling. It isn't about anything we are talking about.


I added that story onto the end as food for thought. It's an example of how religious scripture supported the lack of technological developments. But yeah, once again you offer no rebuttal or counter argument, just an accusation about not understanding. Typical at this point.


Christian Apologists are in fact trained philosophers and many universities teach the arguements for God. Maybe you misuse or misunderstand the word. Anslem and Craig and Aquinas those are Christian apologists. Trinity and Wheaton college for instance both teach apologists how to create valid arguements. If the person you were debating was not a theologist he was not an apologist. Period.



a·pol·o·gist
əˈpäləjəst/
noun
noun: apologist; plural noun: apologists

a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial.


Once again you change the meanings of words to suit your ridiculous argument that has nothing to do with the conversation whatsoever and is instead about me personally. This is what I mean by apologist and this is how I was using the word.


Once again I said religion in the ancient world not today or even the recent past. So that while paragraph is useless.
Which paragraph? You aren't quoting anything so your post is difficult to follow.


You have a knack for strawmans.


You are full of it. In our last argument, you didn't even know what a strawman was. Please list all of the false definitions that I have constructed to make your position seem weaker than it is. You are very quick with the accusations and insults but offer no substance or justification for them.


Abrahamics are not the only religions.


Did I claim they were? Another red herring from you. That's 3 now.


Not everything can be proven by hard science man. Give it up. Study some sociology and humanities. You keep making uniformed arguments on these subjects?


I never claimed everything can be proven by hard science, but you are making assumption based arguments. You have provided no substance to back up anything you've said you are just arbitrarily stating things as if they are facts.


I have you a leading sociologist who wrote numerous books on religion throughout evolution.


I don't care. What does this have to do with anything we are talking about? There are plenty of people out there that write books about Nibiru and all kinds of other horse#. That doesn't make them accurate or true. I don't see what sociology even has to do with what we are talking about.


I also asked to show these grand non religious engineering master works from 2000 + years ago. Let's compair them to the religious emperical evidence.


Religious empirical evidence? Okay sure, you mean that same evidence that you refused to cite for me? Why should I be bothered with that if you won't even give me the common courtesy of backing up your claims when requested? Way to shift the burden around.

And for the love of god, install a spellchecker. How can somebody be a debating and philosophy expert and not even know how to spell the word "argument"? The occasional mistake is understandable, but come on, it's hurting my brain.


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posted on Mar, 10 2016 @ 12:54 PM
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a reply to: Barcs

I told you this last time I am on a cellphone. But nice deception. Perfect example of a red herring.

First off your arguments are weak.

Post the definition of Christian apologist. Research what a Christian apologist is.

Christian apologetics (Greek: ἀπολογία, "verbal defence, speech in defence") is a field of Christian theology that presents reasoned bases for Christianity, defending the religion against objections.

Eat that one mate.

I want to compare the non religious bronze and stone age engineering marvels to the religious ones. I think you know that's what I mean.

You should have picked Laimatre instead mate it would be a harder arguement to defend. In the case of Mendel like I said not only was he a priest he never would have went to school at all without becoming one. He was a poor farmer.

I gave you an author and sociologist who is literally one of the most respected sociologists to have ever existed. He is peer reviewed and there are plenty of ways to check his work. Use Google scholar.

What does an opinion of an expert in the field we are talking about have to do with anything we are talking about? Thats a dumb question.

You love to say things as authority which I already disproved to you. I presented the definition of strawman it was identicle to what I said other than paraphrasing.
Description of Straw Man

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:
Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

Thats your argument style.

I would absolutely love to debate you in a formal setting so you can have a rude awakening. I have the feeling you would just say you were right even if the moderators said differently.

Why don't you break down how the lack of religion directly influenced a technological revolution. Good luck.
Your Moore's law debate is another red herring.

I think you know that as processing power advanced things like robotics, automation, CNC all advance as well.

The claims you make are always over Judaism and Christianity as I assume those are the only ones that fit your argument or are familiar with.
So you are saying ziguarats, massive temples, the pyramids etc all would exist without religion? How about the Vatican that paid for artists to do their work and develop in their schools?

In many cases in the ancient world religion was the only way everything was taught. All the aspects of life were included in the religious texts including early medical and science.

Religion also held the world back at times, it was treasonous and full of destruction. The debate though has to also be would that happen without it. Anthropologically there is evidence to suggest most war is over resources with religion being used as a control mechanism much like television and media today.


edit on 10-3-2016 by luthier because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 10 2016 @ 02:20 PM
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originally posted by: luthier
I told you this last time I am on a cellphone. But nice deception. Perfect example of a red herring.


You don't even know what a red herring is. You can't possibly accuse me of a red herring when I responded to everything you said, piece by piece. That wasn't a distraction, it was added on to the end, because quite frankly it's annoying reading constant spelling errors. I didn't use that to debunk your argument, so calling it a red herring is dead wrong. Cell phones have spell check options, please use them or get an app for it. It will only help you in the long run.



Post the definition of Christian apologist. Research what a Christian apologist is.

Christian apologetics (Greek: ἀπολογία, "verbal defence, speech in defence") is a field of Christian theology that presents reasoned bases for Christianity, defending the religion against objections.

Eat that one mate.


What is your point? I just very clearly explained how I WAS USING the word apologist and cited the definition. You are more concerned with semantics than you are with proving your case. You called me juvenile before, yet you have to follow up an argument with "eat that"? Who is arguing out of emotion again?


In the case of Mendel like I said not only was he a priest he never would have went to school at all without becoming one. He was a poor farmer.


You made the assumption that religion led to his discoveries with no evidence. Everything you are saying does not matter, they are more red herrings. Give me direct concrete proof that religion caused his work, rather than his own personal ambition and curiosity. You can't prove it because it's a completely subjective argument. Folks can have strong faith, while also pursuing scientific discovery. You are erroneously making them mutually exclusive.


I gave you an author and sociologist who is literally one of the most respected sociologists to have ever existed. He is peer reviewed and there are plenty of ways to check his work. Use Google scholar.


"Read a bunch of books by a sociologist" is not an argument. Do you have specific research you'd like to present? Do you have an actual argument to make? I'd ask you to cite me a specific research paper, but we all know how that will work. Look mate, you have to do better than this. What are you trying to argue by bringing him up?


What does an opinion of an expert in the field we are talking about have to do with anything we are talking about? Thats a dumb question.


Opinions can be wrong. Scientists write books that are wrong. You are using appeal to authority fallacy here. Just because somebody has done peer reviewed research, doesn't make all of his opinions automatic truth.


You love to say things as authority which I already disproved to you.

Example?




The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:
Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

Thats your argument style.


I know what a straw man is. Please list examples of my straw mans in this thread. You can't just quote the definition and say, "Aha! You argue like THAT!" That is absolutely not how I argue. If you think I do then please list examples of how I have distorted your position by intentionally misrepresenting it. The only person distorting things is you with your backtracking (Ie Moore's Law claim).


I would absolutely love to debate you in a formal setting so you can have a rude awakening. I have the feeling you would just say you were right even if the moderators said differently.


I don't think you would. In order to debate you need to present arguments, offer citations and respond to counter points. You are not doing these. You make generalizations and assumptions and do not address the majority of counterpoints I have made, you just repeat your original claims (IE Mendel was a priest! Dontcha know that priests do everything for god??)


Why don't you break down how the lack of religion directly influenced a technological revolution.

Why? It's personal opinion? I never said it was fact. It is a fact, however that religion has held science back and IMO, it's not coincidence that as the stranglehold religion has held on society has eased up the technology has increased faster.


Your Moore's law debate is another red herring.


How? You brought it up and blatantly misused the concept to argue your point.


I think you know that as processing power advanced things like robotics, automation, CNC all advance as well.


Backtracking again.. This is getting old. This is perfect example of you changing the meaning of your argument after the fact. That was not your argument. I was talking about Moore's law (that YOU brought up), you are talking about processing power leading to more advanced technology. I'm not arguing against that, I'm correcting your misunderstanding about Moore's law. Moore's law itself does not cause anything. It's an observation of the rate of change in technology advancement. What part of that do you not understand??? You just keep ignoring every counter point I make and keep attempting to backtrack out of your original claim. That may work on idiots, but it's not going to work on me.


The claims you make are always over Judaism and Christianity as I assume those are the only ones that fit your argument or are familiar with.


Since when? I have been talking about religion in general. Were we not talking about ancient egyptian mythology and the pyramids before? Stuff like this is what bothers me because you completely made that up and it has nothing to do with the argument.


So you are saying ziguarats, massive temples, the pyramids etc all would exist without religion? How about the Vatican that paid for artists to do their work and develop in their schools?


Yes, IMO, I believe they would all exist, and more. Obviously they would be a bit different in the nature of their designs, but to act like the innovation would have never happened without religion is presumptuous at best. It's kind of like the religion starts most wars argument. Even without religion a large amount of those wars would have still happened because people would just find other differences to fight about.
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posted on Mar, 10 2016 @ 02:41 PM
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a reply to: Barcs

Pointing out my spelling is a red herring.

Focusing on Moore's law is a red herring.

It was a passing comment saying its not lack of religion causing the rapid technology growth it is in fact we are accelerating circuits. Which is true. Your playing fast and loose now.


Prove that lack of religion caused a technological explosion. You haven't done so.

I am talking about ancient history but you can use any time.

For future arguement let's say around the enlightenment era is when religion became completely unnecessary.

You never gave examples of Egypt you commented on mine.

You were wrong about what a Christian apologist is by definition. I specifically said you haven't debated Christian apologists if they were not theologists or theologians. Which you responded that I was not accurate and gave a definition of the word apologist. I was very obviously talking about Christin apologists which you had no idea got trained in schools to debate.

In your opinion they would all exist except they don't and there is no evidence of it. Your ignoring all the emperical evidence because of your bias.

Here is a sumary and review of the work I am talking about which is exactly what our debate is about. You can read the reviews of his theories all over the Internet.
www.academia.edu...

My point bringing this up is we can't debate this properly over an ATS forum without hijacking as we have done the whole op. I am argueing a point already out there and reviewed by the social science world. As well as anthropology.

I can't post the same way on my crappy old cell and it's very glitchy with text. Sometime later I can get on my laptop that way I can closely pick apart your quotes.


Mendel would have been a farmer without religion. He also probably would be dead since he was treated by Christian charity as well. He most likely never would have gone to school if it wasn't for his Christian scholarship by becoming a priest.

Part of your strawman is to assume the only effect on research is data. Obviously that isn't true if the guy couldn't afford to go to a private school and never would have his work documented. You keep saying its possible without yet the only evidence is what we have which is he was a priest that have him access to school, healthcare, and documentation of his work. Your assessment of innate abilities is much more assumptive than the actual history and words of the man himself.
edit on 10-3-2016 by luthier because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 10 2016 @ 03:18 PM
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a reply to: luthier

We are getting absolutely nowhere because you refuse to acknowledge or debate ANY of my counterpoints. You just deny them and speak as if you are an authority, but you have not made any argument, you have not backed up anything I requested, and you have not been honest with your fallacy accusations.

I'm pointing out your spelling to help you out, that kind of thing can hurt your credibility. I wasn't distracting from the argument. I responded to almost every point you made on a point by point basis, so your claim of red herring is laughable as you are the one ignoring most of my counter points. Same with Moore's law, something YOU brought up AND used out of context as part of your argument and now you're trying to blame me for pointing out that FACT.


You were wrong about what a Christian apologist is by definition. I specifically said you haven't debated Christian apologists if they were not theologists or theologians. Which you responded that I was not accurate and gave a definition of the word apologist. I was very obviously talking about Christin apologists which you had no idea got trained in schools to debate.


That is not the ONLY definition of apologist, and it was not the one I was using. A christian can be an apologist (my definition). End of story. You don't get to tell me what version of the word I used in my statement. Sorry.


In your opinion they would all exist except they don't and there is no evidence of it. Your ignoring all the emperical evidence because of your bias.


Um, I clearly said that it was my opinion. I didn't claim it was fact. Do you really not know the difference? Do I need to present facts to prove that blue is my favorite color?

AND WHAT EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE? You haven't posted any.


Part of your strawman is to assume the only effect on research is data.


Where did I claim that? I didn't say that religion had ZERO effect. I said it wasn't the primary cause of his discoveries. I told you to list my so called strawmans in this post and you just failed big time. This is more blatant dishonesty in your accusations.

If you think your loose BS statement above is a straw man that I committed, you seriously need to review some logical debating websites because your understanding of the straw man fallacy is atrocious. I did not anywhere in this thread present a false or distorted version of your side, debunk it, and then claim that it makes your argument wrong.

I apologize to anybody else who is reading this. We are a bit off topic here, and I didn't expect it to devolve into nothing but wild accusations and mudslinging.
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posted on Mar, 10 2016 @ 04:35 PM
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a reply to: Barcs

We are getting nowhere because we are both hard headed people. I do respect your intelligence. I just think your wrong


I am not at a computer because I am daddy daycare during the day. But I can italicize your arguements and statements.

So basically religious people are like chimps. Good to know and perfectly explains why so many cannot comprehend incredibly basic concepts in science.

I countered this saying Laimatre, Einstein, and Mendel were not what you stated. I think you were being mean spirited and disregarded there are plenty of scientific religious people.

I honestly don't think religion had anything to do with the development of architecture, construction, writing, art, language or any of that.

Then you immediately contradict (not clarify these are contradicting statements)
Sure it had an influence on many of those things, but it's definitely not the direct cause.

You were responding to this post by me.

Religion was an important step in developing architecture, construction, writing and printing, exploration, art, language, and even science. From the first person who wondered what created the universe, or ontologically what is reality to building temples and astronomy. Sure it spiralled out of control and the natural domination instinct of mankind created a blood sea but it had its purpose and probably was an evolutionary necessity. Even as an atheist I have no problem admitting that.


You have created a strawman. You misrepresented my arguement. Go back to my post and your entire rebuttle.

Also I said it had nothing to do with thedevelopment or origins of those things. Obviously it influenced some buildings and some art, but it isn't responsible for the origin of art in general or the origin of architecture as you suggested. 

Another strawman. Never said anything of the sort.

You were responding to this from me. If you don't think religion had anything to do with architecture, art, writing and printing, astronomy your a poor cultural anthropologist. 

Here is another strawman. From you


I'm not talking about cultural anthropology, I'm talking about human intelligence. And yes, correlation to causation fits the bill here because you are claiming religion CAUSED all of those developments. It didn't. It was there and it dominated society, but a belief system can't come with new ideas and designs, so your argument is invalid. You have no reason whatsoever to assume that without religion, none of those designs would have been implemented or used as humans developed into a society. 


Never said anything about cause. I was implying the influence yeah a big one. There is lots of religious art and architecture to prove this in the ancient world and very little to discredit this.

Another strawman where you provide the evidence of the fallacy directly above your post by quoting me. Go back and read.

Now you are being ridiculous. You are seriously saying that his belief in god is the sole motivator in everything he did, and without belief in god, none of his work would have happened? That's a bit of a bit assumption there. 

Go back. Never said it was the sole cause. I was saying it was a major influence.

You say
Been there, done that. Debating apologists is easy, they never make logical arguments

I disagree give examples to disprove Hitchins Craig being one. I also deny you have debated a real Christian apologist. Then you say.


Who has trained in universities to have debates on God? Certainly not anybody I've debated with. I didn't say I debated any FAMOUS apologist. Apologists are everywhere, no special training needed. The majority of them do not debate, they dictate false things to be true and use straw mans. Calling it a debate is very generous. It's more like a rant.

And then you say this

Once again you change the meanings of words to suit your ridiculous argument that has nothing to do with the conversation whatsoever and is instead about me personally. This is what I mean by apologist and this is how I was using the word. 


I never changed the meaning you just skoffed at what I was saying about Christian apologetics. I obviously was referring to that and clearly stated so by talking about scholars. You totally ignored my arguement and pretended I was wrong or changing meaning instead of accepting you misunderstood my arguement.


I can go on but it's already a huge post.



posted on Mar, 11 2016 @ 08:55 AM
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a reply to: PhotonEffect

I'm going to be thinking about this all day now - or forever :-)

Maybe something important happened to one of them or all of them in certain spots - and this is them remembering

Remembering triggers something - stress, fear, anger... Our rituals get passed down from generation to generation and are often based on an event - real or imagined



posted on Mar, 11 2016 @ 02:00 PM
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originally posted by: luthier
So basically religious people are like chimps. Good to know and perfectly explains why so many cannot comprehend incredibly basic concepts in science.


Yeah, that statement wasn't in reference to anything we were debating, it was really just a joke based on the article. I was being mean, yes, but if you have seen some of the anti-evolution arguments made by religious extremists slandering scientists in this section, you'd understand where I'm coming from.

It seems there was a miscommunication with the statement you quoted. Please note that at the time I wrote it, I had a feeling that could be misconstrued like that, which is why I put in the phrase "development of" before I listed each item.


I honestly don't think religion had anything to do with the development of architecture, construction, writing, art, language or any of that.


When I say "development of", I'm talking about the origins of those things or new designs/versions of those things that improve them as a whole. I guess I could have been clearer and said "original development of". So there's no straw man and no contradiction if you read it like I intended.

I was under the impression that you were crediting religion with the origins of those things and new designs so if that's not what you implied I apologize. If you were just saying that religion inspired certain art and certain buildings to be built, I'm with you. But if you are suggesting religion is responsible for new designs and innovations, I simply don't agree and I credit that to human intelligence and ingenuity. Anybody can say, "I love god! Let's build a temple in his honor!". But not anybody can actually plan out and design it so it won't fall apart. This is where the religious factor goes away and the intelligence/creativity factor takes over. Religious inspiration is different from religious causation.


Also I said it had nothing to do with the development or origins of those things. Obviously it influenced some buildings and some art, but it isn't responsible for the origin of art in general or the origin of architecture as you suggested. 

Another strawman. Never said anything of the sort.


This is not "another straw man" It is the same exact misunderstanding we had above. You did say development in your first line so it made me think about orgins of new designs and structures.


Never said anything about cause. I was implying the influence yeah a big one. There is lots of religious art and architecture to prove this in the ancient world and very little to discredit this.


Again. You quoted 3 separate "straw mans" over the SAME misunderstanding. I don't understand why you would accuse me of 3 straw mans repeating the same straw man three times. Either way it's not a straw man. It was a misunderstanding and really you are nitpicking.

Plus, you insinuated origins and early developments more than once:


Go back in history and you find the earliest buildings of grand scale engineering are religious.



ceremony caused engineers and thinking to go further than mud huts.


Yes, you did mention cause. I didn't realize religious ceremonies caused engineers to come up with new designs. Any tangible connection to confirm that?



Another strawman where you provide the evidence of the fallacy directly above your post by quoting me. Go back and read.

Now you are being ridiculous. You are seriously saying that his belief in god is the sole motivator in everything he did, and without belief in god, none of his work would have happened? That's a bit of a bit assumption there. 

Go back. Never said it was the sole cause. I was saying it was a major influence.


More nitpicking. Now you are upset because I said sole reason instead of primary reason, even though I clarified numerous times after, that I was talking about PRIMARY reason, not only reason.

Here are some quotes by you:


Yes I honestly believe if he was not a priest he would never have came up with his theories



I am being rediculous by saying the sole reason a priest does everything was because of God?


Funny, you nitpicked me but here you are saying exactly that.


Never did I imply that religion was the sole responsible cause of all of humanity.


I never said that you did. Oh noos, you would call this a straw man if it were me!


The claims you make are always over Judaism and Christianity as I assume those are the only ones that fit your argument or are familiar with.


This is definitely a straw man, because I definitely did not say anything like that anywhere.



You say
Been there, done that. Debating apologists is easy, they never make logical arguments

I disagree give examples to disprove Hitchins Craig being one. I also deny you have debated a real Christian apologist. Then you say.


Notice I did not say "Christian apologists". I said apologists. In fact the ONLY time I even put Christian before the word apologist, was when I said that you sounded like one earlier. Not all apologists are Christian.


I never changed the meaning you just skoffed at what I was saying about Christian apologetics. I obviously was referring to that and clearly stated so by talking about scholars. You totally ignored my arguement and pretended I was wrong or changing meaning instead of accepting you misunderstood my arguement.


I very clearly told you which definition of the word I was using, so why are you even still bringing this up? That would make it a red herring, since I was talking about something different. Normally in a conversation if there is a misunderstanding you clarify the meaning and move on. I did this but you are still arguing about it.



I can go on but it's already a huge post.


So can I, although instead of nitpicking each other until the cows come home, why not just agree to disagree?

I don't see religion as a direct / primary / main cause for any of the things you mentioned in the first post. You do, right? This isn't really a black and white debate, it's opinion based. There is no absolute right or wrong stance here. Even cultural anthropology has a certain level of interpretation involved when analyzing the past. You think religion was a major influence. I do not agree, because innovation is what did it, whether religion inspired people to do it or if it was a king or ruler that inspired it, or if it was just people being creative. People coming together isn't just a religious thing either, it's a survival thing.

I'm just saying there isn't a direct correlation between religious inspiration and creative designs and innovations that upgrade our understanding of such things. And yes, I still believe that technology, and the evolution of building design has improved dramatically with less religious influence. Compare the innovations in the 20th century, with the previous 20,000 years and there is no comparison, and not just for computer technology either. Development moved at a snail's pace until folks were allowed to experiment and test things that could be controversial to the bible or religious folks without consequence. It also started spiking after the establishment of the modern scientific method.
edit on 3 11 16 by Barcs because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 11 2016 @ 03:31 PM
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a reply to: Barcs

If you built a baseball stadium would the cause be the sport of baseball? Would you ever build a baseball stadium and the special equiptment and such that impose design considerations and engineering without baseball? The baseball stadium caused men to come together and figure out the methodology for building a stadium for baseball. Therefor increasing mankind's knowledge of building artifacts including clothing and bats etc.

Probably you wouldn't deny this because it isn't a trigger for you. The religious zealots have made the topic sour to you. I understand my mother in law used to try and get my son not to use his left hand. It made me mad.



It just so happens that the early form of baseball (religeon) came to be when no other large scale engineering accomplishments existed. The drive, desire and direction to build temples was for the sake of religion. The actual ingineutiy was of coarse man. Just like it is in science. Science doesn't create anything either. It is just a directive. It's a better one than religion for producing artifacts and for discovery of most things.

You keep ignoring Mendel would never have even gone to higher Ed without the church paying for it and caring for him during his illnesses when he couldn't afford drs or university. Thats on top of how religious the guy was. I think we can say religion had a large influence on his lifes work. Not just a minor role. Thats all I mean.

As for these apes well I think it's pretty interesting if it is ritual.



edit on 11-3-2016 by luthier because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 14 2016 @ 11:46 AM
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a reply to: luthier

It's the same argument, and just as faulty, IMO.

Baseball itself is not the cause of the stadium. It is a sport. Baseball didn't design the stadium and didn't engineer it. Baseball didn't teach the engineers how to build it or help improve the design over time. You keep linking these things as if they are direct cause and effect but they are not. Since baseball exists, people decided to make it marketable, and part of that is building a structure that can hold tens of thousands of people. Baseball itself didn't cause that, human motivation for money is a far bigger factor. Then the people worked hard to figure out how to design it.

That is the real cause of the stadium, the brilliance and drive of the engineers that figured it out. They DIRECTLY caused it, baseball didn't do anything to build it. Claiming that religion is a major factor in building innovation and new designs is flat out presumptuous and I've already explained why. If baseball didn't exist, the stadium would still most likely have still been built for another sport or event.

If somebody decided to try to invent something that can send humans to the moon in 24 hours, would the cause of that invention be the moon? Inspiration? maybe. Direct cause? No.

I'm not arguing religion didn't have an influence, but it's not the primary, direct or major cause. And again, it's far more likely the building designs and overall understanding of it would have improved faster without religion. Your argument is pretty much that religion was there and part of everyone's lives, therefor it's responsible. It's not.


You keep ignoring Mendel would never have even gone to higher Ed without the church paying for it and caring for him during his illnesses when he couldn't afford drs or university.


That's an assumption. If religion did not exist, who are you to say that some other charitable organization or group wouldn't have cared for him or helped him go to school? You don't know that, so crediting religion with his discoveries is still a huge leap of logic. If you want to believe that, fair enough, but he wasn't the only deeply religious curious person on earth. Why was he able to make these discoveries while the thousands of other priests and deeply religious folk could not? Maybe there is far more than just the religion involved here. Just saying. Out of all the causes for his work, religion is probably the smallest.


edit on 3 14 16 by Barcs because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 14 2016 @ 11:49 AM
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a reply to: luthier

I think Giordono Bruno would disagree with your sentiments towards the Church promoting science. For every Mendel there's a Bruno or Galileo.



posted on Mar, 15 2016 @ 02:45 PM
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a reply to: Barcs

And just to clarify, with Mendel, even if everything you said applies and he wouldn't have gone to school without the church, etc, that STILL would not make it a direct cause of his successful work. They are still unrelated even if religion did everything in his life except directly work with his experiments. That is where you separate the scientific method from religion. He wanted to understand how it worked. Whether or not god is responsible is based on his own personal beliefs, but doesn't matter in the equation of genetic inheritance.

If religion can be claimed as a primary cause, it doesn't explain anything about why tons of others aren't inspired in the same way and why the vast majority of top scientists today are non religious. What happened to that religious inspiration?


Your argument is pretty much that religion was there and part of everyone's lives, therefor it's responsible. It's not.


I didn't get to edit this in time for clarity, but before you scream straw man again, please note that this is not my argument against you. It's not the reason why I believe you are wrong, nor is the purpose to tear down your argument, so please don't single this one line out and ignore the rest of my response.

And if not religion, then something else most likely would have inspired those designs.
edit on 3 15 16 by Barcs because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 20 2016 @ 11:07 AM
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originally posted by: olaru12
Religion?

Another possibility is that they are making ART. Chimp aesthetics for the sheer pleasure of creation of something "new" I have heard that chimps will decorate their bodies with flowers and grass and dance. Self expression at a basic level, but still dealing in abstractions and creativity.



just to add another option, perhaps what we're seeing is some kind of primitive game or sport.



posted on Mar, 20 2016 @ 12:28 PM
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originally posted by: Barcs
a reply to: luthier

I honestly don't think religion had anything to do with the development of architecture, construction, writing, art, language or any of that. Art pre-existed long before human religion as did language. Just because a religious person originally proposed the big bang, doesn't make religion part of it, nor does it make it a product of religion. In the same light it is 100% separate from evolution. Religion has nothing to do with alelle frequency.

Religion is separate from all of that, so to attribute all that stuff to religion is laughable to me. Just because religion was there first, doesn't mean it created or led to any of that. Sure it had an influence on many of those things, but it's definitely not the direct cause. The intelligence of humans created that stuff. Religion is just a crutch that people have been leaning on for centuries to come to grips with the fact that everybody dies at some point. Religion held us back from science if anything.



Actually, religion is founded on science. I know....hard to believe.

Religion began as a study of nature, and an attempt to see the eye/mind of the Creator through the observation of His creations.

Over the millenia, you have religion become a two headed beast. The profane have this very basic, behaviorally based belief system that covers the basic allegories, but ignores the underlying truths. THen you have the initiates, the ones who see the underlying framework, and who are privy to the secrets that we, today, call science. Of course, back then everything was made of the 4 elements, and was suspended in the aether. But you get the point...

Nowadays, science has moved towards empricism while religion has moved towards fanaticism. And twain the two shall never meet. But it wasn't always so.



posted on Mar, 20 2016 @ 07:00 PM
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a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I have to say, your avatar is killer.



posted on Mar, 21 2016 @ 09:16 PM
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a reply to: peter vlar

Not really no. The catholics as bad as they were and have been have educated millions of poor people in schools that are above average internationally and would not have been educated otherwise. I am well aware of all the bad things they also do. It's inconsequential to the reality that mankind will have a lust for power whether a religious dogmatic society or the eventual oligarchy that comes from secular democracy. Plenty of examples of secular companies and the US secular government stifling progress as well. Both you and Barcs assume science can not be corrupted and misused that it will always right itself based on its integrity. That is false. It is mankind's morality that will govern rules of ethics. This is a massive complex subject in the realm of sociology. Why I keep bringing up Robert Bellah.


My arguement with barcs that you replied to was first religious people are not unscientific just because there are morons out there. Thats why I brought up Mendel, Einstein, and Laimatre.

Religion has done lots of bad. That was never my arguement. So has capitalism but that doesn't mean it wasn't a necessary social evolutionary step. Somehow it's less bad to you and some who think science will guide humanity that capitalism has destroyed as many if not more lives and habitats than religion. Thats why philosophy is so important for society. It examines ethics and arguement without religious dogma. Science does not do that. Science does not guide the reason to act. It is a method for observation and predictions. You can make perfect mass murder machines with science for Ill purposes. If you have no ethical guidance.

Furthermore as I kept stating I was talking mostly about the transition from animal to civilization we went through.

I don't know if either of you were ill effected by religion but it stands to reason it still has control over you if it makes you make hasty emotional arguements. The best way to get rid of religion is to let it go all together. Thats easy for me to say I wasn't raised religious.

There is also the fact that the architecture across the globe in the ancient world are in fact religious artifacts. Even domestic scale culture built large houses and huts for cerimony. Religion was an imparitive. It guided people on a sense of duty and what actions to take. Yes including the bad ones. Philosophy can too. Like the categorical imperative.
edit on 21-3-2016 by luthier because: (no reason given)




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