Well, he did claim this:
So it would seem that none of us are worthy. Only he has pulled the proverbial sword from the stone (proven that God is an impossibility a priori), which he consistently reminds us of here and elsewhere and only he knows the true nature of religion and theism, for he is the one true Scotsman 
. The rest of us are just selling fish.
Pris,
I think that you’re conflating mental and physical attributes here. Existential angst is psychological and arises from the knowledge that we will some day cease to exist, amongst other aspects of life and death. It doesn’t follow that existential angst is part of our DNA because everyone experiences it. It appears as though you’re connecting dots and seeing correlation, which you think is causation - then you make a positive claim. Perhaps erroneously.
It is a given that everyone experiences existential angst, but it is not a given that existential angst is “DNA ordained”. The latter claim requires extensive evidence.
Where is the evidence that human beings have anxiety cells and that they are existential related? Where is the evidence that anxiety cells led to the creation of religions? You can’t expect this to convince anyone. As an argument it has insufficient grounding IMV.
Perhaps, but it is a speculative claim. Why doesn’t religion have the same effect for atheists and agnostics?
Simply nonsense IMV, please explain why you believe that religion is a type of mental illness.
Perhaps, but I’d rather blame the culprits than the religion as they are the agents. The Ideology may influence them, but they have a choice.
I’m not sure if Islamic terrorists provide a holistic account of religion, I don’t know enough about Islam to make a claim (which doesn’t mean that you’re right), as for the future of religion who can possibly know? The best we can do is speculate based upon current trends, but that is certainly not an exact science.
You can’t seriously be making an argument out of this? The cells were said to be found in the brains of mice. We are far away from making claims about anxiety cells in humans.
Maybe, but it is a highly speculative claim.
We can’t know that yet. Therefore a positive claim on the issue is misplaced.
Pure science fiction IMV.
Read my point again. I did not claim ‘because something is based on faith that it is necessarily wrong.’ Not every view that is based on faith is necessarily wrong.
I stated ‘theism is fundamentally based on faith which by default is easily defeated and difficult to defend using reason.’
You got my point wrong. It is not ‘perfect’ but “absolutely perfect”.
Thus it should be
God must be ABSOLUTELY perfect [the Greatest of all] or he’d [a lesser god] have to eat shit from a greater god.
Thus God must be “absolutely perfect” i.e. an ontological God than which no greater can exists.
When a God is “absolutely perfect” not just ‘perfect’ then it will always dominate any other gods, thus do not have to eat their shit.
Thus rationally, you MUST choose a God that is absolutely perfect.
Note ‘absolute’ = totally unconditional.
It is no a huge leap by a high probability. I have given links and references indicating a connection between religions and anxieties.
I said again,
“What matter to me or philosophically is the substance of the argument.”
You are trying to push through is a fallacy, i.e. Argumentum ad populum, the consensus fallacy where you are trying to appeal the majority.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
I will say again,
“What matter to me or philosophically is the substance of the argument.”
You keep saying my argument is flawed… so where it is flawed?
However I ‘tweaks it and fudges’ [if you think so] it is up to you to present a counter view, which I had done.
“Peers” is normally a group recognized by all participants where all members has the basic credibility in a specific expertise. For example ‘peers’ in a Scientific community. In general, even in a Scientific community, a Biologist would not accept any Physicist as a peer to present an acceptable critique of their specialized papers related to biology.
In this case I don’t know the background of all the participants here and anyone Tom, Dick and Harry can join to express and counter views presented in this forum. In this case, I do not accept posters here as my ‘peers’ and I expect vice versa from others. No offense intended, it is not that I claim I am better, it is merely an intellectual consideration.
The above is a useful feedback for further improvement, especially on knowledge re Problem-Solving techniques in this case. It is yours and others’ discretion to accept or not.
I often get such feedback and in most cases I make it a point to detect where I have weaknesses and strive to improve on it.
The DNA [no damage] is the generic basic architectural and machinery/operational blueprint for all human beings.
It is the DNA that programmed all humans to be mortals, self-aware and all the basic mental programs like instincts, emotions [including fears-anxiety] etc.
Note,
‘angst’ = a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general.
Then isn’t it literal ‘existential angst’ involve anxiety?
I wrote earlier, I have given evidence and links connecting religions with anxieties.
Note there are non-theistic religions like Buddhism, Jainism and others. Note >90% of humans are religious [theistic and non-theistic].
Where theistic religions assuage anxiety, it is based critically on a belief, God exists.
For those who do not buy the idea God exists, theistic religions do not work on them to assuage anxiety. Instead they rely on other means to relieve the existential angst, e.g. like non-theistic religions, secular self-improvements, and to the other extremes of drugs, opioids, and other negative extremes.
The mechanisms that drive the existential crisis, i.e. anxiety and others that led to religions as a solution is basically a psychological problem of say a certain degree but not serious enough to warrant psychiatric treatment.
However when this same psychological mechanism is serious enough it leads to serious anxiety disorders which are mental illnesses.
The fear of mortality is heavily suppressed within an existential angst, but when this fear of death impulses leak to consciousness, it is Thanatophobia which is a serious psychiatric problem.
So there is a continuum of anxiety re the existential crisis ranging from very mild [say 10%] to very extreme [thanatophobia] [90%].
The death anxiety that compel people to religions would range from 10% to say 75%.
At least you acknowledge you don’t know enough. In such a state of ignorance in view of the seriousness of the threats from Islamists, your should at least educate yourself thoroughly on Islam to understand it fully.
Note this Lord Pearson -UK who [possibly the only Lord] is very responsible to take the trouble to understand Islam more deeply in its truths that Islam is inherent evil.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bjks3fmajM[/youtube]
I told you earlier, this thread is not the most critical point but merely a hypothesis based on the promises of the Human Connectome Project.
humanconnectomeproject.org/
Science fiction?? This is why I am aware your knowledge in these areas are so lacking. It is good for you to take this critique positively to increase your knowledge.
Note I have taken the trouble to build up a relevant knowledge database that is very strong, deep and wide. This is why I am able to deal with whatever questions you can throw at me at whatever depth you can dig into and width you can stretch. Just try…
Note currently humans has been progressing in modulating their anxieties and other emotions albeit using the black-box approach and there are success stories. The Buddhists had been doing that for thousands of years without resorting to theism.
The Human Connectome Project [in future] will enable humanity to go in deep into the ‘black box’ to expedite the process and ensuring it is fool proof.
Aristotle [thousands of years ago] was aware of modulating emotions [anxieties included];
The Stoics also discussed about modulating one’s emotions for the better.
Right.
In order for it to be defeated by default, it would have be necessarily wrong. What do you think default means?
Default - a selection made usually automatically or without active consideration due to lack of a viable alternative. Remained the club’s president by default. The default candidate. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/default
So by using the word “default”, you’re saying there is no viable alternative to defeat, which necessarily means that anything based on faith is necessarily wrong.
Perfect is absolutely perfect because if it were not, it would have to eat shit from greater perfects.
God must be perfect or he’d have to eat shit from lesser/greater gods is the same thing. If God were not perfect, then the lesser gods would now be greater. If God is perfect, then the greater gods are now lesser. The fact remains that lesser gods do not exist (your premise requires perfection for a god to exist lest it eat shit from other gods; therefore no lesser gods can exist since, for some reason, gods cannot eat shit like dogs).
So, lesser gods = nonexistent gods and by substitution:
If God were not perfect, then the nonexistent gods would now be greater; therefore, God must be perfect so as to not eat shit from nonexistent gods or unicorns or fairies or anything that doesn’t exist will work just fine to substantiate the claim.
Again:
God must be ABSOLUTELY perfect or he’d [a lesser god] have to eat shit from unicorns, fairies, flying pink elephants.
“Peers” are the Argumentum ad populum you were on about:
You are trying to push through is a fallacy, i.e. Argumentum ad populum, the consensus fallacy where you are trying to appeal the majority.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
So the populum at ILP are not peers, but the populum of academia are peers 
The ILP populum has no credibility an therefore no authority, but the populum of academia has credibility and therefore we can appeal to that consensus for an authoritative pronouncement.
Pris,
I think you missed my point. Finding anxiety cells in mice, does not IMV provide grounds for speculation about the connection between religion and anxiety, and the different ways that religion affects anxiety. If there are no human studies in which this relationship can be studied and analysed, it is clearly a huge leap. What evidence suggests a “high probability” perhaps you could provide a link to it?
I thought that my initial response was sufficient? The logic of your argument constitutes the substance. The logic you attempted to apply in your argument has been refuted. Therefore the substance is flawed.
I disagree. As I stated, forums like these act as a form of peer review (whether you perceive us as your peers or not) you submitted your philosophical argument here, on a philosophy forum and most of your “peers” refuted and thus rejected your argument. Therefore the consensus is that your argument is invalid/wrong. It is not an appeal to the majority, it is stating a fact. You don’t have to agree that the consensus is right, but there’s no fallacy in referring to the consensus in this case.
Note, I’m not claiming the proposition that you’re wrong is true because many or most people believe it is so, my claim is that the refutations of your argument by the consensus are valid. Hence the consensus is right.
You’ve rejected all of the many refutations which highlight the flaws in your argument. There’s no point in taking up this with you again. Note, you believe that your argument is “perfect”.
You have weaknesses? Well I guess that even Superman has kryptonite… 
You are insisting here and I’m not going to take your word for it. Where is the evidence that existential angst is “DNA ordained”?
Based on the answer that you’ve given, it seems that you didn’t understand my question? I asked/stated:
“Where is the evidence that human beings have anxiety cells and that they are existential related? Where is the evidence that anxiety cells led to the creation of religions? You can’t expect this to convince anyone. As an argument it has insufficient grounding IMV.”
So you’re claiming that religion only assuages existential angst in theists? Wouldn’t that mean that the efficacy of religion in alleviating angst is psychological and therefrom effects the physiology of the brain? I can accept that may be the case, but I’d have to read detailed research supporting that claim before I concluded that religion assuaging existential angst is a certainty/fact, is there any such research? Also, I don’t think it follows that everyone finds an extrinsic means of dealing with existential angst?
I’m not going to argue against your opinion in this case, but I think that you’re wrong here on many counts that I’ve covered previously (in the Online Philosophy Club). Needless to say that I don’t think that religion is a type of mental illness, rather it is a world view, and If God exists, religious thinking could be a correct world view.
We’ll see if scientists identify anxiety cells in human-beings, and therefrom are able to modulate them, causing the anxiety driving a person to be religious to be reduced and/or eliminated, resulting no more religiousness, which will lead to religions being weaned of and/or disappearing in the future. We can wait in adjacent coffins.
Even if that is true, it doesn’t mean that you are impervious to being wrong about things in areas where you feel that you’re knowledgeable; or that you’re able to answer all and any questions correctly that may be posed to you in areas where you feel that you’re knowledgeable. I think it is apparent from your statements, that you overestimate your intellectual ability, and underestimate the intellectual ability of others.
Pris,
Quite frankly, this is awful. With these considerations, why bother to post your arguments on philosophy forums? Surely, the content of what the interlocutors say is more important than their background? I’ve never heard anyone say something like this and it says more about you than I think you understand. If you were empathetic (as you claim), you would understand that.
I don’t think “anxiety cells” would distinguish a religiously caused feel good from one caused by eating a piece of chocolate. I don’t think a scientist could make that distinction either.
Maybe not. Sometimes I wonder if it would piss him off because religion is ultimately full of conceit.
“Nothing can be more egotistical than true repentance.” - twitter.com/A_Watts_Quotes/stat … 2510606337
Serendipper,
Apologies, I should have been clearer in what I was saying. When I said “religious thinking” I actually meant unaffiliated modes of thinking about God, but because God is attached to religions, I said “religious thinking”. Personally, I don’t believe that any theistic religion has the correct world view, but I don’t know that all of them are incorrect. I think there’s a possibility that one of them could be right, although I don’t have a belief in any, if that makes any sense?
Oh it’s cool. Sometimes I wonder though if I assume there is a god and want to “play it safe” by trying to do right, then what is the right thing to do? How do I impress god or is the act of trying to impress god just going to make him mad?
I think, maybe, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil isn’t named quite right because the implication that eating of the tree bestows knowledge couldn’t be as sinful as claiming one can tell good from evil. So it’s the tree of conceit wherein eating of the tree, much like alcohol, causes the bravado to presume there is a good and evil or that one can know what it is.
Obviously, we can’t stop sinning, whatever that is, so redemption couldn’t be about anything we can consciously do because how is the one who needs fixing going to be able to pull himself up by his own bootstraps in order to fix himself? I think it was St Thomas who argued that the law wasn’t given with the expectation that we would follow it, but merely to show us that we can’t. So the law is humbling and not meant to be cause of persecution of righteous crusades.
This could be the narrow gate that few find and the wisdom of the babes who have an ear to hear because kids innocently just want to play and generally don’t get self-righteous until they’re older. Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism have that theme in common, though none of them typically practice it.