You don't understand superstitions and how they are propagated.  Review some of BF Skinner's experiments with pigeons.  You can train superstitious behaviors in pigeons by rewarding them randomly.

Works like this - pigeon has a bar in its cage and sometimes when it presses the bar, food is dropped in the tray.  But randomly.  Not after a certain number of presses, nor a certain time interval.  Randomly.  And the pigeons will begin to demonstrate superstitious behaviors.  They will spin, or shake their head, and so on before pressing the bar.  Their actions have no effect on whether food will appear or not because they are not being rewarded for superstitious behavior.  But the longer they are in this situation where food appears randomly after they tap the bar, the more set the superstitious behaviors become.

Works the same way in people - it is the randomness of the universe that causes superstitions.  You perform some action and randomly, you get what you ask for.  Random rewards are the strongest training method known to learning theorists. 

Religion works the same way - pagan or Catholic or Jehovah Witness or Muslim or Hindu or .... - people get what they pray for randomly.  And so they continue with their superstitious behaviors more "religiously".  All of us are liable to fall for this built in programming.  It is the way brains are wired.  Researchers have used the same learning techniques on spiders for pete's sake. 

My point is that we need to be aware of and watch out for our tendency to be programmed for superstitious behaviors.  When the behaviors are harmless, fine.  But when they cause us to sell all of our stuff and quit our jobs or attempt to kill ourselves or our families because we are sucked into some old guy's delusions, they are harmful.  And so religion is not always good for the individual or for society.

That religion may consistently always be bad for the individual or society would be the subject of another post.

So in other words you can't explain how you'd explain christianity to someone who doesn't understand language, and you concede the point.

So you still haven't explained how you'd explain any religion to someone who cannot comprehend language, and you add to that failure the suggestion that christianity has existed since the beginning of time, despite no artifacts or writings to back it up. It's quite obvious who is making the naked assertions here.

You have shown anything but. Occams Razor works like this. You take something, anything. Lets go with an orange. There are infinite possibilities on the face of the question as to how there is an orange. With Occams Razor you eliminate such things as an alien or santa claus or nothingness. Because none of those things can explain or describe an orange. The same works with reality. You CANNOT use nothingness to describe reality, because nothingness does NOT describe reality.

Do you see any real distinction between them? Other than that they each have their own texts and rituals of course. I'm just curious.

Whether or not god is unknowable, the universe is knowable. We know it, therefore it is knowable. Whatever happened WILL be explained AND confirmed by science, should the human species not end itself in nuclear fire or swatted aside by an asteroid or some such thing. Therefore god remains an extra equation that means nothing and does nothing for the question of existence. Asking "god?" does nothing. Nothing can be learned about existence by asking god, because as you suggest god is unknowable. It's simple, god is unnecessary.

 

The superstitious pigeon behaviors were not trained.  They happened spontaneously. 

Training involves some sort of reinforcement for specific behaviors.  As the researchers did not respond to the superstitious behavior, the pigeons were not being trained. 

Superstitious behaviors are spontaneous and are not a response to a consistent reinforcement schedule.  The point is the reinforcement for these behaviors are random.  Sometimes the desired outcome follows the behavior and sometimes not.  The randomness reinforces the behavior.

Do you know anyone who has had all of their prayers answered?  Consistently?  Every time?  When you pray for better grades or for a child to have better grades does it always happen?  When you pray for better understanding, does it always happen?  Have you prayed for world peace?  To quote a famous person, how's that workin' for ya?  Every person who has been ill and has ever been prayed for has become miraculously better?  Not one 90 year old died?  Not one death due to cancer or heart trouble or ? 

So what do you say?  God's will?  God's plan?  And do you continue praying over the next ill person? 

Religion is superstition.  They are both a set of behaviors randomly reinforced.  Does god/s/dess respond randomly?  If s/he/it/they have a plan how is that different than random from your perspective?  After all, I'm pretty certain you don't get regular tweets with an update of the plan for the day from your god/s/dess.  So how can it appear other than random from your perspective?

I didn't concede any point.

You never made the point or answered my objections to it.

The Christian tradition is the continuation of the tradition of Yaweh from the descendants of Abraham and others (such as Melchezidak) who worshiped the one true god. It's not a naked assertion...rather an abduction from the available data.

Much like your own interpretation, but you never addressed this accusation, so I suppose you conceded the fact that you were doing this, eh, and that your interpretation of fact is not fact it self?

I wasn't using nothingness to describe reality.

 I was using nothingness to eliminate possibilities under Occaam's razor.

If reality exists, then why do I need the razor?

IOW, ocaam's razor is a tool used in uncertainty, not the other way around.

The origin of life, for instance: abiogenisis and transpermia are two explanations for life on earth. Ocaam's razor would suggest that abiogenisis is the better explanation because it had fewer assumptions. I don't use ocaam's razor to determine if life exists. I don't need to because I already know that.

I do see distinction between them. I've studied many religions, and Sunni Islam and Theravada Buddhism in great lengths.

The "god" question is not something you can answer with science. That's a category mistake. Where did I say that Gid is unkowable, BTW? I don't beleive I did.

Vastet wrote:

You have shown anything but. Occams Razor works like this. You take something, anything. Lets go with an orange. There are infinite possibilities on the face of the question as to how there is an orange. With Occams Razor you eliminate such things as an alien or santa claus or nothingness. Because none of those things can explain or describe an orange. The same works with reality. You CANNOT use nothingness to describe reality, because nothingness does NOT describe reality.

I wasn't using nothingness to describe reality. I was using nothingness to eliminate possibilities under Occaam's razor. If reality exists, then why do I need the razor? IOW, ocaam's razor is a tool used in uncertainty, not the other way around. The origin of life, for instance: abiogenisis and transpermia are two explanations for life on earth. Ocaam's razor would suggest that abiogenisis is the better explanation because it had fewer assumptions. I don't use ocaam's razor to determine if life exists. I don't need to because I already know that.

Yes, you did.

Wrong again. You never made any logical or rational objections to it, and you failed to do the only thing you CAN do other than object, which is explain. You haven't explained, so you concede. It's really that simple. The only way to reverse your concession is to explain. But you've had 3 or 4 chances to do so already, so I'm not holding my breath.

Of which no evidence exists to suggest it always existed, so you are making a naked assertion that it always existed. Period. EVEN IF YOU ARE RIGHT, it is still a naked assertion without evidence.

On the contrary, I showed you to be wrong at best, lying at worst. You have yet to do anything but make naked assertions and logical fallacies. I haven't won completely yet, but you've only got one finger keeping you on the cliff. The rest is hanging out over nothingness.

Yes, you were.

And you don`t use Occams razor to determine if the universe exists either. You already know it does. But you CAN use Occams razor to figure out WHY and HOW and WHEN and WHERE and WHAT, by using it to eliminate explanations that don`t fit, are unnecessary, and add nothing to the equation.

I`m curious as to whether you look at them as evil or misguided. Or if you look at different religions differently. Such as the jews vs the scientologists. I rarely get a chance to discuss a religion with someone who is a follower of a different religion.

Well, you hadn't explicitly stated it before, I was inferring it from another statement, but you have stated it now. If something can't be answered with science, then it can`t be known. Which is of course the whole point of faith. If you KNOW there is a god, it doesn't take faith to believe in it.

Ktulu wrote:

Occam's razor is a valuable tool in an economical sense relative to energy expenditure towards a solution.  Not all assumptions are equal in energy weight.  For example assuming a biblical creator may seem like one assumption, however that assumption is extremely expensive in energy due to the fact that it weighs in all the omni-x attributes that this entity may have, along with a multitude of other implications and ambiguous evidence.  It is not ONE assumption, it is a huge array of assumptions some of which are contradictory.  

Using energy towards expenditure is a use of ocaam's razor within the realm of practical uses. That's a proper use of the razor.

But you're making a category mistake to use it to dismiss the existence a creator god.

 

Saying "yes you did" does not show how... so far as I can tell, this is another naked assertion about another naked assertion...

You're convinced I made a concession... If you want to think that way, that's fine, but you're just making up as you go then...

I said it was an interpretation of available evidence... a counter interpretation to what you were asserting... You claimed that your interpretation was fact.... that's at least consistent with making things up as you go...

Logical fallacies and naked assertions, eh? I don't recal you ever labeling something a logical fallacies, and you're convinced of semething I did not do... You're perpetuating your delusions even more...

Now you're putting words in my mouth.

You obviously don't understand the difference between a proposition and a fact. You assert that your proposition was a fact... I was simply taking a proposition to the extereme... nothingness. But I need not use ocaam's razor when I know something is fact. You don't get that though...

So you're putting words in my mouth again then?

The "god" question is not something you can answer with science.

I really don't have any more to add here, because you're really not open for debate... you're more interested in proving that I conceded a point than you are with debate... This is going nowhere.... the only thing that is seminally interesting is the discussion concerning my views of other religions..

No, I'm actually more interested in forcing you to answer my arguments, but you're too busy dodging and making fallacies to do so. Not that I'm surprised, most theists give up before trying, simply because they can't, and they know it. But I was rather hoping this would be different. So I'll give you one more chance to explain how you'd convert to christianity a person who cannot speak or understand any language. If you can`t do that, then you concede the point that language is a requirement for a religion to exist.

I refuted your objections.

Not only is that a lie, but YOU still haven't given me ANY reason, good or bad, as to why you wouldn't need language to have religion. Typical theist strategy.

Your failure to address my arguments is proof my point was in fact made, you just can't respond to it. The very fact that you went straight to the conclusion of my post ignoring everything else is further proof you can't argue or refute my points.

So I win, you lose, the discussion is over, and your god is fictional. Gotcha.