Even if theism is a failure, it's still superior to atheism

[Ahriman]

Really? Limiting your objection's applicability to a specific type of entity without good reason for doing so is a version of the logical fallacy called "special pleading". Pretty sure you are aware that you believe lots of things that cannot be proven such as other people having minds or perhaps that the past is gone is some meaningful sense. Granted it sounds clever, as an atheist meme, but fallacious just the same.

Back to the OP though, if for the sake of argument we say theism is false, then perhaps it is false in the same way that ownership and solidity are - convenienct fictions grounded in strong intuitions. Atomic theory tells us the belief in solid objects, as in conguious substance, is an illusion. Rap any table! Look me in the eye and tell ell me you believe the table is mostly empty space. Your intellect may say you believe that but instinctually you know it's "solid" wood. And I dare you to argue with a two year old that his toys aren't really "his" and do not have the intangibible quality of belonging to him. So while we may have many false intuitions, theism among them, that does not mean that are not useful. I can imagine many useful side-effects of theism such as fostering community, providing a psychological way to deal with the unknowable, etc. I can also think of many bad side-effect of rigid dogma and intolerance. Secular ideologies also seem to have a religious feel to them, which would argue against my position but I do not see that as a major objection.

Not that I have a dog in the fight of proving that theism somehow spares one from misery. As I see Chrisitianity, the believers paths is often towards hardship and suffering, as the lives of the Saints demonstrate. For this reason, I would not try to sell religion on the notion that your life will be more pleasant. Far from...

I quite like the analogy made between arguing theism and arguing with a two year old child. Very apropos.

Boru

Most religious people are really not that stupid. Delusional, of course, but not stupid. A two year old child isn't delusional, he/she just has what an adult would consider an overactive imagination.

[Foxaèr]

Children tend to outgrow their fantasies. Adults should do the same concerning their religious beliefs.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I quite like the analogy made between arguing theism and arguing with a two year old child. Very apropos.

Boru

Most religious people are really not that stupid. Delusional, of course, but not stupid. A two year old child isn't delusional, he/she just has what an adult would consider an overactive imagination.

 
(Bold mine)

And how does this differ from religionists?

Boru

[Ahriman]

Most religious people are really not that stupid. Delusional, of course, but not stupid. A two year old child isn't delusional, he/she just has what an adult would consider an overactive imagination.

 
(Bold mine)

And how does this differ from religionists?

Boru

It's not really different. But that doesn't make religious people stupid. I'm sure most of them would score fairly well on an IQ test.

[polymath257]

Again, not completely true. For example, spherical trigonometry was pushed forward by the problem of trying to find the qibla (direction to Mecca). Computation was enhanced by the legal aspects of inheritance. The earliest work on polynomials was done in Islamic lands.


The point is that the Islamic expansion brought together many different cultures and, for a while, those cultures mixed and generated great intellectual works, often because of questions inspired by religion.

I'm not an expert, but, I am not going to accept anything & everything that experts say; sometimes, the minority position turns out to be the correct one.

For instance, a number of historians have claimed that the Battle of Tours was just a "raiding party", which you can read about in Wikipedia.  I find such a viewpoint, even among experts, to be absurd in the highest degree.  I have found no good arguments to support it, and, as a layperson, I reject it.

Likewise, early Islam no doubt used mathematics & science, when such suited them, to further their own ends, but, when the Islamic empire reached its apex, the intellectuals in Islam became more of a threat than an asset; it was at this time that they began to be persecuted more and more, due to the intrinsic teachings of Islam, and not due to some "takeover" from "the fundamentalists", who, rather, were present from Day One.

Well, there is no doubt about the Islamic aspects of the qibla and spherical trigonometry. There is no doubt that the development of the 'arabic' number system, especially how computations were done, was an Islamic achievement. For a while, there was a very active Islamic philosophical tradition.

This came crashing down when Al Ghazali started to argue against philosophical discussion in general and anything 'non-Islamic' more generally. Whether you want to label Al Ghazali as a fundamentalist, his position became dominant and shut down the investigations that had been done up to that point, severely restricting what could and what could not be discussed. Fortunately, the centers at Cordoba were not as swayed by his arguments and continued to engage in intellectual activity long enough for the translation movement in Europe to copy the most important texts into Latin so they could be discussed in European universities.

As for the battle of Tours, I am not familiar enough with the details to say whether it was a 'raiding party' or not. But it is clear that the Islamic advances in territory stopped rather soon after that battle.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

 
(Bold mine)

And how does this differ from religionists?

Boru

It's not really different. But that doesn't make religious people stupid. I'm sure most of them would score fairly well on an IQ test.

All an IQ test tells you is how well someone takes IQ tests.

Boru

[Jehanne]

I'm not an expert, but, I am not going to accept anything & everything that experts say; sometimes, the minority position turns out to be the correct one.

For instance, a number of historians have claimed that the Battle of Tours was just a "raiding party", which you can read about in Wikipedia.  I find such a viewpoint, even among experts, to be absurd in the highest degree.  I have found no good arguments to support it, and, as a layperson, I reject it.

Likewise, early Islam no doubt used mathematics & science, when such suited them, to further their own ends, but, when the Islamic empire reached its apex, the intellectuals in Islam became more of a threat than an asset; it was at this time that they began to be persecuted more and more, due to the intrinsic teachings of Islam, and not due to some "takeover" from "the fundamentalists", who, rather, were present from Day One.

Well, there is no doubt about the Islamic aspects of the qibla and spherical trigonometry. There is no doubt that the development of the 'arabic' number system, especially how computations were done, was an Islamic achievement. For a while, there was a very active Islamic philosophical tradition.

This came crashing down when Al Ghazali started to argue against philosophical discussion in general and anything 'non-Islamic' more generally. Whether you want to label Al Ghazali as a fundamentalist, his position became dominant and shut down the investigations that had been done up to that point, severely restricting what could and what could not be discussed. Fortunately, the centers at Cordoba were not as swayed by his arguments and continued to engage in intellectual activity long enough for the translation movement in Europe to copy the most important texts into Latin so they could be discussed in European universities.

As for the battle of Tours, I am not familiar enough with the details to say whether it was a 'raiding party' or not. But it is clear that the Islamic advances in territory stopped rather soon after that battle.

No one (including me) is doubting that Islam had amazing scholars; all that I am claiming is that Islam succeeded where Western Catholicism failed, namely, in suppressing the logical outcome of Greek science, which laid the foundations of the Italian Renaissance ultimately leading to the Enlightenment.

I do not know enough about Al Ghazali; if he led a "revolution", it was certainly a quiet one; even The Glorious Revolution centuries later in England was well remembered, even though it was bloodless, something quite atypical of the power struggles all throughout medieval Islam.

As for the Battle of Tours, such was not a raiding party. Two armies of 20 to 30K men each stared at each other for 8 days straight, with the Muslims having men on horseback with the Franks on foot. On the 8th day the former charged 3 times, each time being repelled, before the Franks got into gear before killing thousands. A decisive battle for Western Europe concluded shortly thereafter.

[Ahriman]

It's not really different. But that doesn't make religious people stupid. I'm sure most of them would score fairly well on an IQ test.

All an IQ test tells you is how well someone takes IQ tests.

Boru

Well if there were so many stupid Christians, those stupid people would be Christian extremists, and there aren't many of those. And you never hear about extremist Jews.

[The Grand Nudger]

Charles Martel believed that a professional infantry was key to the defeat of the heavy light-and-heavy cav mix of a typical ummayad force. Real mujahideen, zealots, who believed in his cause down to a man, who were well armed, well trained..and, by the time of the battle, had decades of experience.

Abd-al-rahman, commander of the ummayad forces, was overconfident in his men, had little to no intel on the composition (and nature) of the infantry force laid out before him, had to charge uphill through trees to attack, and was compelled to do it sooner rather than later as winter approached and of the two forces..only martels men were geared for cold weather combat.

When the ummayad forces retreated, martel followed them, harrassing them all the way to the pyranees. That this was the unforseen consequence of a raid attempt is chronicled by an andulusian scholar who mentions that the ummayad forces had detoured..to tours, in order to raid it as a part of their strategy for pursuing Odo the great - to force contact. They got their wish, just not with Odo and his peasant conscript army. With The Hammer and his high speed infantry. One of the many instances in which the cult of the horse and sword learned, the hard way, that unsupported cavalry are only good for mowing down peasants. The thing I wonder, is those last few moments when the tip of the spear saw that martel's men were hardened vets made phalanx ready and equipped for some serious anti cav action....

Why didn't they wheel back around then...notwithstanding every failure before? Probably too busy shouting silly shit about what god wills for the last 40 seconds of their lives. I guess they didn't have the benefit of hindsight that we do now, with respect to what their god apparently willed that day. OFC, every infantryman knows a secret that most god botherers don't. God is an infantry god. Not their god.

Early at night its drizzilin’ rain
I am hit and feel no pain
But in my heart I have no fear
Because my ranger God is here

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

All an IQ test tells you is how well someone takes IQ tests.

Boru

Well if there were so many stupid Christians, those stupid people would be Christian extremists, and there aren't many of those. And you never hear about extremist Jews.

You mean YOU never hear about extremist Jews. And only because you don’t pay attention - there are plenty of them.

Boru