Religious People - Prepared To Risk?

[agchristie]

Question mainly for theists (atheists welcome to comment though) as a study shows that religious folk are prepared to take risks...

Do you take risks as you believe that God will be right behind you?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2970682/Does-religion-make-risks-Believing-God-make-think-protected-harm.html

[poorclare]

Abba Abba

[sandyRoe]

forgive them for they know not what they do ?

[naomi24]

idiosyncrasy, // Commonsense don't you think? //

No, I don’t. If Adam suffered from what you analogize with a genetic hereditary disease/defect, then God created that defect and therefore the fault very clearly lies squarely with him. No parent in his right mind would punish all his children for the transgressions of one. That’s common sense.

//this is how God views it.//

You presume to know how an almighty, omnipotent, creator God thinks? Really?

//We do not condone what is done by ISIS, Hitler etc. so why should we condone what these nations did.//

And yet you condone the unforgiveable atrocities committed upon God’s instruction by the Israelites? In today’s world God, according to his alleged history, would be deemed a psychopathic monster without parallel and, in the interests of public safety, incarcerated in a secure mental institution indefinitely - and that you excuse presumably because you think you will be saved. It appears that worshippers of this God are possessed of an ethical vacuum that they either fail to recognise or in a quest for personal salvation are determined to ignore. I despair of religion, I really do. Very, very sad.

[Old_Geezer]

"it presupposes that there is some form of teleological principle operating does it not?"

No it doesn't. It merely presupposes that random changes that prevent a creature surviving long enough to ensure the next generation survives, can not pass on to future generations; whilst random changes that just so happen to aid ensuring a next generation, will stick around gradually working its way throughout the whole population.

[Khandro]

OG; if you believe that the entire evolutionary process is dependant on blind, accidental randomness without direction or significance, this really is rampant naivety - materialism at it's worst!
Do I need to remind you of the striking fact that modern science has not come anywhere near to an explanation of the emergence of life and consciousness? How does you hypothesis of 'randomness' account for these phenomena?

[naomi24]

You see, OG, we don't know how it happened so a supernatural entity must have dunnit. Problem solved. :o)

[Old_Geezer]

On the contrary Khandro, it is common sense, and spotting the obvious.

I'm unsure what reminding me of something that isn't strictly true will help. Not all Ts are crossed and Is dotted but explanations are being improved all the time.

Emergence of life is inevitable as soon as something starts replicating itself, and the evolutionary process gradually improves that so the 'something' gets better at reproduction & survival as time goes by. Once you have replacements being generated you are on the way to life.

Deciding when it has reached a stage that it should be considered life is debatable, but the point is somewhere along that line.

And that is all random as changes are random.

Similarly awareness could be considered a simple enhancement through change. Neural activity feeds back to provide more information. Is it such a leap to believe that eventually awareness emerges from that feedback activity ?

Again this all comes from random change.

There seems to be little to dismiss this. It's just a case of continuing to gain information so that the detail is better understood.

[Khandro]

The usual procedure is to forget the difficulties, never to talk about them, and to proceed as if the theory were without fault. — Paul Feyerabend
There are many alternatives, here's one;
http://www.panspermia.org/neodarw.htm

n. Supernatural? not me!

[Old_Geezer]

Weaknesses are never forgotten (I can't speak for all professors) but worked on so the questioning of the cynical may be answered satisfactorily. I'm sure there are many competing ideas to explain many things, but the acid test is how many of those learned in the subject accept each as best explanation; most likely to be correct.

[Khandro]

OG: Indeed, yes there are many theories being advanced, but the blind, accidental, randomness one is getting gently swept under the carpet, - I have an open mind. There is also an interesting idea being presented by Thomas Nagel of Princeton (an atheist by the way) outlined in his new(ish) book; 'Mind and Cosmos, - Why the Neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false'. You can read the whole book online at;
http://web.mit.edu/philosophy/religionandscience/nagel4.pdf
or a New Yorker review of it at;
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/thomas-nagel-thoughts-are-real
Kind regards, K.

[DaisyNonna]

I remember many years ago being taught at Sunday school 'God helps those who help themselves'

[sandyRoe]

and God help them thats caught

[benhilton]

Read the ten commandments........Do you still think religious worshipers are in an ethical vacuum ?
Commandment six : " Thou shalt not kill " - four words .
It does not say " Thou shalt not kill unless thy King/President/Country tells thou to " - it just says " Thou shalt not kill " .
The ethical vacuum lies elsewhere........

[naomi24]

benhilton, I presume you’re talking to me. //It does not say " Thou shalt not kill unless thy King/President/Country tells thou to "//

Or indeed the God of Israel.

//Do you still think religious worshipers are in an ethical vacuum ?//

Yes, I do.

[naomi24]

Khandro, //n. Supernatural? not me!//

So if neither the supernatural nor evolution is responsible what, in your opinion, is?

Thank you for the link. I shall read the book with interest.

[Hypognosis]

@naomi
(quoting @idiosyncrasy)

//this is how God views it.//

You presume to know how an almighty, omnipotent, creator God thinks? Really?
--

Sperr-latt!
@-)


My attitude entirely. You expect the clergy to have a few clues about the mind of God but to have had the presumptiousness (of knowing) thrashed out of them. Having amateurs - the congregation - attempting it is presumptious, as you said. For their sake, I hope it doesn't classify as Pride.

[naomi24]

Hypognosis, //You expect the clergy to have a few clues about the mind of God...//

Actually, I don't. I never forget that the clergy has no more information available to it than I or anyone else has - including laymen who presume to know the mind of God. ;o)

You seem to like my custard pies. :o)

[DaisyNonna]

As a child I always wondered where all the extra mummies came from if Adam and Eve only had sons. Even if there were unnamed females (obviously second class citizens) there had to be incest involved.

[Hypognosis]

@Khandro

Are you in the right country to watch last Saturday's edition of BBC Click?

See my thread on Self Assembling Objects.
Programme features film footage showing how random motion of components with electrostatic or magnetic contact patches, suspended either in air currents or churning fluid, which slowly assemble themselves into an ordered structure.
Energy input of the moving fluid compensates for the decrease in entropy.

The structures are analagous to organic molecules being bumped around, brownian motion style by water molecules.

Your repeated (more than on AB thread) and vehement resistance to what randomness can achieve suggests to me that you've seldom witnessed any of it.

[Hypognosis]

Forgot link to the thread I referenced

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Science/Question1402254.html