UK: 70% of young people are 'not religious' according to a report - Sensationalist Headlines

I wasn't replying to you, it was just a statement tangentially related to the topic being discussed.

The irony of your post is that a Catholic priest developed the Big Bang Theory.

I'm going to be honest mate. I have no clue what borked rationality you are trying to apply here, this looks an awful lot like my point on the previous page, that growing up in a religious society leads you to believe that the existence of a supernatural supreme being is the default stance and any other view is somehow attempting to prove this wrong. This is backwards. You are making a positive claim here, You are claiming that the supernatural exists, you are claiming that one particular god out of thousands is the one that exists, and that it created reality because you feel that's the only way it could have happened. Prove it. The ~rational basis~ for my position is that it obeys the laws of reality as we understand them, your idea flys in the face of them and relies on the intervention of some non-measurable supernatural force to rationalise something incredibly hard to comprehend. I could claim that a magical teapot creature named Thom the Benevolent Malevolence was there at the start of reality, and that the universe sprang forth from his divine spout- and this idea would have an equally solid ~rational basis~ as your suggestion that another man made god head willed everything into being. How do you expect anyone to take your world view seriously when it's on the same level as Thom the magical time and space teapot?.

No no no no no no There is no logical alternative that we know of. There could be one, and there most likely is one, because otherwise we wouldn't exist. I'm gonna assume you're just gonna go into antecedents and conclude that because it's impossible for something to come from nothing, God must be the answer. This is a flawed argument for two reasons: A) If something can't come from nothing, whence did God come? B) If you, as a solution to A) decide that "God is eternal" and therefore He doesn't need antecedents, the only thing you've done is decide what qualities God must have, and what qualities the universe in itself can't have - conveniently enough in a way where God is the only """""logical""""" option. In reality it's just a bunch of circular logic stemming from the fact that you've decided that God is eternal, and therefore God is the only starting point. This is simply a way to embellish the statement "God exists" into something that might be mistaken for a logical argument.

Unless they find another value to aspire to, culture death is often a risk in these situations

To some extent I agree, Christianity was unifying in a way and gave individuals a sense of purpose or direction. However it's not especially unique to Britain, there's noting to suggest it can't be replaced with something else. A lot of what defines the British identity is unrelated to religion. I would be lying tho if I said I didn't fear it being replaced with one giant homogeneous culture connected by the internet and popular media.

Every time the religious say "god works in powerful and mysterious ways" they're basically saying "I don't know" with the addition of not trying to actually explain anything When a scientist says "Probably, we don't know" they are bitched out and the religious use god of the gaps arguments to strawman them Think about which side you want to be on

This is already a discussion about personal beliefs so, hopefully, this won't come off as a snarky callout. But there's something I've never really understood about your views @Sgman91 , and it's your unwillingness to accept both doubt, and the fact humans aren't always rational actors. I'm not standing by the argument that religion is always about dishonesty and craziness, and I can see how that post makes the things I'm asking about seem a little more justified to you in this instance, but I'd still like to see what you think.

Religion is a hard sell to today's socially conscious youth when it so blatantly panders to old bigoted raisins and is so often an excuse to discriminate. I objectively know that religion is fine and all, but due to my experiences with it I just really can't stand it at all. It's so rare to find a religious denomination that doesn't systematically hate some group out there for what they are.

"I'm not sure why you would expect people to take your worldview seriously if you can't even provide a rational basis for it being possible." This reads like a critique of religion more than anything else. You've got some warped ideas of what the word rational means.

Like any good exam question, I won't accept an answer like "God did it" unless you can show your working and prove it.

God did it because he doesn't want you to masturbate or boil a goat in its mothers milk

I wouldn't dare give "god did it" as a definitive answer. I just won't discount the possibility, because it's one of those nasty things that's impossible to either prove or disprove.

There are an infinite amount of things that are impossible to prove or disprove, none of them are more or less valid than the existence of God.

We aren't disagreeing?

Meh. Imo you can totally discount things, even though you can't "prove them impossible". It comes down to where you think burden of proof lies, and I believe it 100% lies with the people making a positive claim. With your idea you pretty much need to entertain any random idea claimed as truth.

I did not say that. I choose to entertain the idea because I find it vaguely interesting. There is no logical obligation to entertain it.

Religion is just a way to make people fall in line and to keep those with power, in power. No stealing, no killing, no leaving, no loving those you’re not supposed to. It creates a strong social construct and tradition that twists the ignorant into people willing to die to keep it intact and exorcise folks who break these rules. It keeps people from cooperating if they have different values, it make people hold onto their useless culture, it keeps people afraid and instills a false system of believing that there are rights and wrongs in this world into people. But even without religion humans are naturally violent, communism denied belief in higher powers and ended up killing millions of people across barriers of differing cultures. Remove religion from human history and another excuse would be made up to put each other down. There is no god, only man, which is far, far worse than any sky king.

It makes no sense to me, in the slightest, to mock someone's beliefs when you have nothing better to offer. I find that true in all fields of thought. I have zero problem with honest and respectful disagreement.

What? Did you misunderstand my post? I honestly don't get how that relates to what I'm saying

I've heard a thousand anecdotes from tens of different religions. I don't know how you could ever really be comfortable claiming you have an answer when there's other options out there. I accept I don't know. I'm okay with that. The closest I could ever get to the idea you have is a non-denomenational diest perspective, but you have a specific denomination entirely based on the regionality of your upbringing that you don't have the same strength of arguments for as you do for the base argument of where the universe comes from.

I hope you didn't take my "eternal rubber duck" as an example of mocking. I'm not in the business of mocking religious people, I'm just trying to counter some arguments here.

I literally can't see this as any different from a god of the gaps argument. We dont have an exact explanation and we aren't willing to make shit up so you think we have a less rational worldview.

There's no need to be rude to him like this to be honest.

I Idk i think zuk conveyed his point well enough Hes very good with making his point, whats there in his post that is mocking

If its rude to tell the truth then....on any other issue if someone tells you they get the facts beamed into their head it would be over not only because of the mental implications but because it makes them hopelessly biased

The edit on your post is entirely un-needed and isn't "telling the truth".

And a god creating it out of thin air doesn't? What makes that possibility special exactly? What made the god? I don't see how that belief is more rationally consistent than any other.

People will believe what they want to believe, you probably won't be able to change that. I believe we are purely coincidental however

"God his special. Why? Because he's God"