Hi Otokonoko
Interesting you should use a 'Tale of Two Cities' in your post. I used it in the chapter that I condensed into this article. My premise was that it would be easy to show the Dickens knew someone who was related to ….etc. And in this way 'prove' a Tale of two Cities was a true story. Unlikely, but impossible to prove it is not.
Is atheism a belief system? If atheism is removed from the text does the meaning of the text change? I think not, so it is interesting, but a side issue.
What is the solution to the problem? I have no idea. But it could be helpful to understand what the problem is. That would be a beginning.
I did offer the suggestion that if we made decisions knowing that we had incomplete information then we could modify them as we went along. If we claim the truth of our judgments we are stuck in dogma and cannot modify our position. Those may not be the exact words but it is the essence.
There is a bit that was culled from the original because of space constraints that is a positive. Once I began to recognize HP and RHP I knew when someone was feeding me bull. It is a major step forward knowing who to listen to and who to pass by. It does not take much to learn how to recognize when someone is claiming truth by default.
I would like to claim that I do not have a belief system but that would be a judgment. One of the interesting things for me is the difference between what I think I am writing and what others are reading. If a commonality appears I will modify my explanation next time to avoid the error, but I still think it is largely judgment based (my belief system again).
spindoc.
Is your post just another example of 'what I write is not what you choose to read?'

Hi Daviy,

I agree that removing ourselves from "fact" can, at times, be beneficial. The "fact" that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction proved false, and dented the credibility of three governments. I seriously doubt that the highest powers in the US, UK and Aus firmly believed it, either. Nonetheless, the "fact" plunged a number of nations into a war and increased instability in the region. Certainly, there were grounds for the removal of Hussein, and doing so would have always caused strife in Iraq. Had the leaders, however, stated that "we believe Hussein is developing WMD; he won't give the UN unhindered access to the sites, so we're going to use force to have a look for ourselves", they would have caused strife in Iraq but, perhaps, would not have brought about trouble in their own countries. They would also have been able to change their position without egg on their faces. Had they simply said "we believe the world would be better off without Hussein, and here's why . . .", they would have at least acted on some level of reasoning rather than on rhetoric.

As for atheism being/not being a belief system, I think it is a feature of a belief system rather than a system of its own. In turn, the belief in a god is a part of a belief system: it is merely a feature of the beliefs that make up an individual. I believe in God and also believe in evolution; I follow many Catholic teachings but do not believe in a solitary path to salvation. Put together, these pieces make my belief system almost - if not entirely - unique to me. Similarly, others may be completely atheist and, to take an extreme example, believe the world is flat. That is a peculiar belief system.

Hmm . . . I don't know how much sense I have made but, as you pointed out, this subject is interesting but beside the point.

Davy, you've been writing for 20 years which would make you around 25? Very impressive your article from that context.

"The human race is in a mess because we make wild guesses and claim them to be true: we eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil."

Doesn't the latter part of the byline to this article refer to original sin: the way humans disregard their intuition when making decisions about what they do and replace it with their intellect?

I'd suggest this is the root cause of mankind's problems.

Otokonoko
Limited military strikes to find out the truth about WMD's in Iraq would probably been acceptable to me. People accepted that they existed because it could not be proved they did not. That is precisely what RHP is about.
The way you used the word 'fact' in your post was interesting. 'Fact' that claims truth (they, them, and a well know fact) when it is no more than judgment?
The question of God. I have no problem with God, and I hope that God has no problem with me (if God exists).
What I have a problem with is being told to follow certain rules by someone who claims to be God's lawyer dispensing God's law. I must 'believe' and have 'faith' that what I am being told is true when the only claim I can see to it being true is that I cannot prove that it is not. That is RHP.
I tried to be specific in the article about how I saw the believe system. A glob of judgments we claim to be true. This does not mean we cannot know or understand things, or have preferences.
We all have things that are true and right for us, but as soon as that becomes a judgment, that it is 'right' for everyone, it becomes part of the glob of judgments I have defined as the belief system.
The dividing line for me is before judgment we can learn and evolve. But Judgment is the End. How can you go past being right?
RobP. Judgment replacing intuition? I can live with that as an alternative way of explaining it.
spindoc. What heat? There has not been a rework. I want to focus the debate not broaden it. If this is sticking my chin out wait till you see the next article.
Gavan Iacono. If I told you my age you would say it was dementia. There is no defense against this sort of crap, but it does confirm how much work the human race still has to do.

Daviy said "What are you on about mate? (Can we have a debate without cheap theatrics please?)"

Sorry.. that wasn't meant to be read offensively.. it would have come across better verbally than in writing.. so anyway..

I have no qualm with your arguments about HP and RHP, I simply think this:

"Religion and philosophy are one and the same. They are systems that attempt to tell us how we got here and why we are here. They are both wild guesses about the unknowable."

... is demonstrably untrue. As other posters have commented, reigion and philosophy are poles apart by any rational analysis. This is a nice, succinct description of why:

http://atheism.about.com/od/religionnonreligion/a/philosophy.htm

Daviy said:

"Religion and philosophy are the same in the context that they both attempt to give us identity. Christians, Jew, Muslims, Atheists and others all have dogma"

So you agree with me that atheism is not a belief system.

Atheists do not have dogma either. How can they? Other than sharing an unbelief in something (atheism is a bad term in that it defines people in terms of their relationship to a concept that bears no relevance to a rational reality), what else would be the source of such a dogma? My limited data set would indicate that atheists have nothing in common other than an empirically testable view that reason and rationality is the best means by which human affairs can be conducted