Mike Mullikin wrote:

Huh? I have no idea how you read that from what I wrote.

Yes, I guess it *was* a bit of a leap of thought. I suppose I made it because my suggestions thus far have all been tied in with the idea that science and the scientific method don't provide a basis on their own for living; science can tell you more about how the universe works but it doesn't help with the "why". That you can't build a moral framework solely on the things it tells us. Gonna have to duck out of this discussion at this point, interesting though it has been ... Time calls me away from the PC...

Are you saying that basic human rights are founded on facts deduced from the scientific method? How can you construct an experiment to test whether it is true that "all human beings are born free and equal"?

espeir wrote:

That definition would have to include atheism as a religion. However, religion is more specifically an organized belief system of God's nature.

I acknowledge that "religion" is a difficult concept to define. The first entry for it on dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=religion[^] references "belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers", which would certainly exclude atheism. By "statement of faith" I meant "something that can't be proved or disproved by the scientific method". I think the scientific method can prove that pigs can't fly, but it can't make any kind of judgement about whether "whatever is pleasurable, is good". I agree that my example hedonism statement is not a religious statement, but it is a statement of faith under the definition I've just provided. I think we're largely in agreement, bar the semantics.

Then I would say that your instincts can pull you in different directions, but you need some way of deciding which route to take. A man might see a child in a burning house, and his survival instinct tells him to run for it, while his social instinct tells him to try and save the child. In order to be able to judge one of these actions as "right" and the other "wrong", you need some kind of measure or standard to compare them against. That measure or standard cannot itself be an instinct; it sits above them and enables you to choose between them.

Let me try and disentangle what I said from what espeir said... When I used the phrase "moral framework", I was essentially meaning "Something that enables you to decide whether a given action is right or wrong". I didn't say that atheism is a religion ("religion", for me, implies some kind of organised belief system) but I did say that it requires faith; I wrote that to be an atheist, "you have to believe, without any evidence either way, that life and matter and the laws of the universe *just somehow* exist." And this statement of faith (the one about life and matter etc.) doesn't provide you with any means to enable you to decide whether a given action is right or wrong. To explain what I mean by giving a contrast, here is a different statement of faith: "Whatever is pleasurable, is good". This statement does give you some basis for deciding whether a given action is right or wrong. Hedonism isn't a religion either, in the "organised belief system" definition.

What do you mean by "fundamental human behaviors" - are you thinking of instincts that are programmed into us as part of our genetic makeup?

Ray Cassick wrote:

Roger J wrote: can a rule exist w/o anything sustaining it? Yes, because the rules that we discuss (gravity, thermodynamics, time, etc..) are all fundamental rules. They are THE rules that are the basis for all others. They are the 'Bass Classes' of the universe. They do not need to be sustained because they themselves are the sustainers of the rest of the universe.

How do you know this? Can you prove these assertions scientifically? Or are they just articles of your faith?

Ray Cassick wrote:

The bottom line here with the entire religion vs. science thing (at least in my opinion) is that I believe in what can be proven and refuse to believe in what cannot be.

But your statements above show that you believe in some things that aren't proven. You have already made statements of faith without realising it.

Roger J wrote:

yes but isnt that beleif ("*just somehow* exist") pretty weak?

Well, I would certainly say so, yes. And given that atheism *is* a faith, it does seem to be a faith singularly lacking in helpful hints on what one's purpose is or how one should live one's life. You often find that atheists borrow parts of their moral framework from other faiths, because moral frameworks are a practical necessity (you have to choose to live your life *somehow*) and atheism is inadequate to supply them.

Roger J wrote:

I just find it interesting and this is an area where atheist normally just close their eyes and cover their ears and say "but thats just how it is" for me, that is just as naive as beleiving in a christian god.

I would say that "naive" is the wrong word here. What you seem to be recognising is the fact that everyone has faith in *something*. Some atheist scientist types will tell you that they don't need faith at all, and that everything can be explained by the scientific method. I would disagree - science cannot answer these kinds of "why" questions. I am fond of pointing out that it requires a lot of faith to be an atheist. You have to believe, without any evidence either way, that life and matter and the laws of the universe *just somehow* exist. You are putting your faith in Chance, or Randomness, as the basis of the universe.