I accidently went to youtube today. I accidently watched a video about religion by an idiot and was driven to much rage. But. Linked off this idiot i found another video and it was not by an idiot. Reasonable questions were framed and an argument was stated and acceptable. So. I felt I had to reply. Someone was being right on the internet. So I sent him a message. The message was long but I feel quite to the point. I am posting the message here, word.
Right let's go. You are the first person to frame the right questions, so here is my attempt at a structured response Firstly a summary. Your discussions circulates around the notion of an objective truth or an absolute and objective measurement system, and lack there of. The argument goes that if there is no belief in a structured and absolute truth, who is to say one belief system is higher than another, and indeed if that were to be said it has to be also explicitly stated upon which measurement system the statement being made, assuming no absolute truth (i.e. god). I suppose the reflected notion for the religious individual is that: with a belief in an absolute power (residing in any given holy power of your choosing), it is possible to make decisions on the worth of various belief structures, using the assumed wishes of the absolute power as the measurement system I hope I got that right. Now, stepping back for a moment let us discuss survival. Specifically the survival of an idea. An idea survives if it portrays tenants which can survive. More specifically in humans an idea survives if its existence (in some way or another) benefits its carrier, in the idea's case the human brain and the body there in contained. So fine, on that level we have ourselves a handy measurement system. This system though not necessarily de jure is provably de facto. If an idea portrays the tenants of survival and ascribes benefits to its participants then it is a "good" idea in the sense that it is propagated and survives. On this level it is obvious that rational and non-rational viewpoints can both have potential benefits. A completely rational agent attains survival benefits in one way, a non-rational agent attains different but similar benefits to survival in another way. Great. Stepping back from the completely abstract for one moment, let us examine this concept of "worth" more closely. I agree completely that in the general sense it is impossible to call religious belief inferior to non-religious. But, let us consider specific scenarios: Let us pretend that all we cared about as a society was the discussion of the objective measurement, modelling and explanation of the universe. If this were the case then one can make statements such as "belief of an all knowing all seeing creator is an inferior model to the belief in the scientific method of measurement, model construction and model refutation". Now in its isolated form the statement just made is incredibly controversial. But ascribed to the very specific purpose of "modelling and explaining the universe" it is more accurate. By this I mean if you were a gambling man you would be better off (most of the time) going with the scientist rather than the priest when given the task of measuring the state of the universe and from these measurements concocting an explanation. The reason I am an atheist is that upon further examination of most of the issues i face in life (professional, social, cultural, political, economical etc.) scientific examination and structured thought has payed higher dividends than social and moral dogma extrapolated from ancient tomes. So, in the general case, from theists, I don't request an explanation. It would be ludicrous to do so, unless for whatever reason their beliefs were insistent on affecting a specific situation. That is to say, in discussions where I believe rational debate to be more fruitful than dogmatic defaults, I require my opponent to show evidence for their conjecture as I am perfectly willing to do so for mine. In those situations i patiently question faith.
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