Any other atheists here? Some frustration

[dynamicbuttler]

Atheists/Militant Atheists? Are there any in here?

And for those of you who are misinformed, a militant atheist is just a more outspoken atheist who believes in spreading atheism to others. We wield no weapons, lol

Honestly, I detest religion. I believe few things are less dangerous to modern thought than the noxious miasma of respect that shrouds people's religious beliefs: To paraphrase Richard Dawkins in a sentance:

Serious debate is allowed in every field of science, where ridicule is the typical reaction to ridiculous ideas, but if you tell me you can't touch a light switch on a Saturday, I have to respect that!

Why is so much respect given to ideas so utterly devoid of merit? Why is faith, which is basically the ability to stomp your feet and cover your ears in the presence of coherent evidence, seen as a virtue rather than a character flaw? I know that faith has been shoved down your throat from a young age, everywhere you go. It's crept into our language in such a way that it itself is hard to remove without causing serious damage to other ideas: "I have faith in you." "She was faithful in her marriage." I know how dangerous it may seem to attack faith but that's because of it's self preservation strategy: It's burrowed itself so deeply into our morality through simply sharing it's name with other ideas- superior ideas.

I honestly think that the respect for religion in today's time especially lies in the need for a defense. Just as women and children are protected with chivalry and all sorts of moral codes, the idea of religion which has no rational defense and should be so vulnerable to dissection and criticism, has found a way to protect itself with a towering wall of reverence and respect. However, Ideas are not people. I don't think there's anything at all wrong with attacking weak ideas.

[icey]

wow! you're brave lol

im an aetheist i always have been and i always will, i try not to criticise religion or its followers but it does get confusing and in my eyes somewhat hypocritical when things get twisted around and people only use what they want then discard the rest as and when it doesnt suit.

ive also seen people hurt through it or maybe i should say through carelessly and usually inaccurately quoted texts from the bible and other such books, both family and friends.

if people are going to follow something then i hope they get what they are looking for from it but i dont appreciate people who knock on my door every other day ramming it down my throat ...i dont ram my non-belief down theirs.

[fetishdj]

I am not quite an aetheist, I am more an agnostic bordering on aetheism because I still beleive in one thing - that a scientist should keep an open mind about all things and that includes the possibility or not of the existence of a godlike being or any other spiritual aspects of the universe.

However, I think you are confusing two definitions here. You say you do not beleive in religion but say nothing about beleif in god or similar. Now, it may seem pedantic but surely the two are not one and the same. Whether god exists or not is a matter for debate and one I relish. The matter of religion is a completely different issue. A god is not their religion and likewise a religion is not a god, even though many would think it to be so.

I do agree with you that a lot of religion is nonsensical, mired in the past and bogged down in dogma (beleive this because we tell you to...). I also agree that a lot of the bad things that have occured in the world are due to religion or religion has been used as an excuse. I think the modern world would be a better place without religion. However, I think the development of religion and what it has done to our minds was an essential step in human development. Without the ability to look at the stars and make shapes or the ability to link coincidences together and attribute them to a primitive deity we would not have the pattern recognition skills essential to modern science. Admittedly, we also would not need the scientific method to persuade our minds to only look for patterns that are actually relevant rather than ones we made up but I don't think we would have got that far in the first place. Religion has also been a driving force behind art, literature and story. The existence of the memeplexes we call religion has meant that we have had to devise more efficient ways to pass these on.

However, in the modern day, religion has lost its relevence. This is possibly due to it being dogmatic and incapable of adapting fast enough to modern times (I mean, seriously, how many Jews do you know who burn thier beds once a month after their wife's period? Its in Leviticus that they have to do this and technically fundamental Christians do too as they claim to follow the bible in its entirity when really they just pick and choose the bits that suit their own prejudices such as the sin of Onan which is completely misinterpreted as being against masturbation when it is really about refusing to shag your dead brother's wife...) Many of these concepts have no use in the modern age and are badly interpreted when they are applied.

I personally prefer to live and let live with regards to religion. So long as you do no harm to me or others (self harm is fine in my book...), do not evangelicise to me or otherwise attempt to 'save me' then I will happily get on with my life while you get on with yours. This is why I am not a 'militant aetheist' or even a 'militant agnostic'. But then I can never see agnosticism getting militant. Its like 'Meh, I dunno what to think, why should I tell you what to think when I can't decide meself?' :)

[Thorne]

Like fetishdj, I'm more of an agnostic than an atheist, not willing to say that there is no God, but that I don't see any proof that there IS. Actually, I generally refer to myself as an Apathetic Agnostic: I don't know if God exists, and I don't give a damn.

Like you, dynamicbuttler, I have a problem with religion, seeing it at the center of the vast majority of problems existing between cultures today. But don't confuse religion with faith. It's not the belief in a higher power that causes the strife, but the codification of a belief system, religion. Everyone has faith in something, to one extent or another. I have faith in science, since it's impossible for me, or anyone else for that matter, to know everything there is to know about all science. I have to trust that the scientists are, in general, following the scientific principles which have been developed to ensure that knowledge expands. It's quite easy for a religious nut to proclaim that the world will end tomorrow. Not too many will believe him (or her) though it's surprising to me how many actually will. But if an astronomer comes out and says there's a 95% chance that a newly discovered asteroid is going to strike the earth and destroy the planet in one month, it's probably a good idea to kiss your ass goodbye!

[fetishdj]

I have problem with the concept of 'faith in science'... you see, you cannot be a scientist and have faith in science as you always, absolutely always, question everything all the time... But I do understand what you actually mean by the term which is you are more willing to trust the evidence of science than that of religion.

There have been some amusing attempts at logic by religious types to try to disprove evolution. If I find the time and anyone is interested I may post a few of them I have heard. The basic summary of them is that Creationists and IDers are still fighting a battle scientists had among themselves about 30 years ago and are no longer interested in. They stopped worrying so much about 'If' evolution happened and started exploring theories as to 'How'. And it turns out the creationists were right - Darwin was wrong. Not in the overall principle but in some of the detail - specifically that evolution takes a long time to happen. We now know it takes a lot less time and is not entirely genes (which more recent scientific dogma had stated) - there are other factors at work.

But that is an aside...

[Thorne]

I have problem with the concept of 'faith in science'... you see, you cannot be a scientist and have faith in science as you always, absolutely always, question everything all the time... But I do understand what you actually mean by the term which is you are more willing to trust the evidence of science than that of religion.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I have faith in the scientific method. Results are checked and verified and checked again, over and over, until it becomes reasonably certain that the results won't diverge outside of statistical error. True, even then things can happen to change scientific understanding, but I have "faith" that scientific explanations of how the world works are far and away more accurate than religious explanations.
On the other hand, someone once proved mathematically that a bumblebee cannot fly!


There have been some amusing attempts at logic by religious types to try to disprove evolution. If I find the time and anyone is interested I may post a few of them I have heard. The basic summary of them is that Creationists and IDers are still fighting a battle scientists had among themselves about 30 years ago and are no longer interested in. They stopped worrying so much about 'If' evolution happened and started exploring theories as to 'How'. And it turns out the creationists were right - Darwin was wrong. Not in the overall principle but in some of the detail - specifically that evolution takes a long time to happen. We now know it takes a lot less time and is not entirely genes (which more recent scientific dogma had stated) - there are other factors at work.

But that is an aside...
I would be interested in hearing them. I'm always game for a good laugh. Except that in my neck of the woods (and it is, indeed, a red neck) it's more depressing than humorous.

[fetishdj]

Not only can bumblebees not fly but kangaroos cannot jump. Same mathematical logic. :)Both of these concepts are based on inaccurate information and assumptions - the bee is a solid mass and not almost completely hollow, the kangaroo weighs and acts the same as a sack of potatoes when various adaptations to muscle make jumping a more efficient method of travel.

I'll dig out some more but I think it may need to be a seperate thread...

[ObjectivistActivist]

Somewhat obviously (to anyone who's read Ayn Rand's non-fiction), I'm an atheist, and tend towards the militant atheist camp.

The idea of "religious tolerance" is probably religion's greatest weapon against free, secular society. It attempts to forbid us from passing moral judgment on people or cultures who do unquestionably evil things so long as they do them in the name of their god(s). Of course, until and unless it's attempted at the point of a gun (which in some places and ways it is), it's still defeatable without having to resort to weapons yourself.

The whole and entire concept of religion (and faith in general) is antithetical to the requirements of human life, and its persistence correlates to the horrors (both on a local and global scale) that continue to be perpetrated today. Is that to say no atheistic regimes have committed horrors? No, it's not. Nazi Germany was atheistic (ostensibly; they accepted a lot of favors and help from the Catholic church), communist Russia was atheistic as well, and both are amongst the largest killers of humans in history.

However, their justification for slaughter was of the same kind as that religion uses; they just substituted the word Society for the word God. In that sense, they cannot be said to be atheistic, or at least not properly atheistic in that they did in fact have faith and worship an indefinable entity greater than the individual (again, it was just called Society instead of God).

Atheism in the western world is under attack, but it's not an obvious, overt attack. Instead, it's an insidious one that relies on guilt and peer pressure instead of laws and guns. The idea of religious tolerance, inspite of the attrocities committed in the name of religion and God(s), is the weapon being used, and the ultimate goal is a society-wide terror of being accused of intolerance towards evil.

I, for one, will never back down in the face of such accusations. I say, with pride and fervor: Yes, I am intolerant of religion.

[Alex Bragi]

...
However, their justification for slaughter was of the same kind as that religion uses; they just substituted the word Society for the word God. In that sense, they cannot be said to be atheistic, or at least not properly atheistic in that they did in fact have faith and worship an indefinable entity greater than the individual (again, it was just called Society instead of God).

...



Interesting, but taking that notion on board, aren't we all theists of some kind?

And, isn't it a kind of irony that one one thing theists and atheists (in the religion/anti religion sense) have in common is their belief that they are right and everyone else is wrong?

[bellelapine]

Interesting, but taking that notion on board, aren't we all theists of some kind?

And, isn't it a kind of irony that one one thing theists and atheists (in the religion/anti religion sense) have in common is their belief that they are right and everyone else is wrong?


Actually there is the type of atheist who put themselves as the individual above any and all others. I wouldn't say the individual worships themselves, merely they will not be a stepping stone for the undeserving "leeches" of society because these people fail to think and do for themselves. They look to do for themselves and achieve for themselves. These type of people I wouldn't say were theists in any sense of the word. They look to reason and logic for their answers instead of perception and belief or faith.

[Alex Bragi]

Actually there is the type of atheist who put themselves as the individual above any and all others. I wouldn't say the individual worships themselves, merely they will not be a stepping stone for the undeserving "leeches" of society because these people fail to think and do for themselves. They look to do for themselves and achieve for themselves. These type of people I wouldn't say were theists in any sense of the word. They look to reason and logic for their answers instead of perception and belief or faith.

???Unless I'm mistaken, I think you may have misread or misunderstood my post, bellelapine.

[Euryleia]

And, isn't it a kind of irony that one one thing theists and atheists (in the religion/anti religion sense) have in common is their belief that they are right and everyone else is wrong?

Good point, Alex.

One of my favorite quotes is from Umberto Eco: "When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything."

[Alex Bragi]

...

One of my favorite quotes is from Umberto Eco: "When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything."

That's a good one. I like it. :)

[ObjectivistActivist]

Interesting, but taking that notion on board, aren't we all theists of some kind?



No. As my pet so aptly pointed out, there are atheists who worship no power higher than the individual, and in fact do not recognize the supremacy of any power above the individual. Individual rights, and the tenets of reason (the antithesis of faith, faith being a requirement of theism) guide such individuals in their actions and life, requiring no worship of anything inherently unknowable.

The reason that atheistic so******m and religion are two sides of the same coin is because both demand faith in something greater than the individual, meaning that the individual is nothing beside "the greater good." Whether that greater entity is God or Society, it's exactly the same thing, since God is defined as "that which exists beyond existence" and Society as "that which is not the individual." Both are nonsensical, amorphous constructs that are to be sacrificed to, whether one is willing to give or not. One's willingness is not even a factor, since the individual and the individual's designs or desires are not to be considered.



And, isn't it a kind of irony that one one thing theists and atheists (in the religion/anti religion sense) have in common is their belief that they are right and everyone else is wrong?


There's a very big difference between belief and knowledge. I know atheism is right for a few reasons, the largest of which are as follows:

1) Does the universe function without the interference of a supernatural force? Indeed, can the forces at work in the universe be altered by appeasement of said supernatural, inherently unknowable force? The answer to the former is yes, and the answer to the latter is no. Thus, taking Occam at his word (though he had attempted to prove the existence of god rationally) "the simplest answer is most often the correct one."

2) Is faith a valid means of accumulating knowledge, of directing action towards the betterment of individual life, or of forming a cogent and integrated vision of reality? The answer to all of the preceding questions is no, faith is incapable of achieving any of those things. It takes reason to do those things, and one must work within the confines of the natural world, excluding from all equations and judgments the supernatural (i.e. that which does not exist). Nowhere does religion or faith form a cogent or applicable vision of reality, nor of a proper moral code intended to live within reality, and thus it is to be rejected on all levels as a detriment to life.

3) Does morality depend on faith, or on edicts from a supernatural entity? No, it doesn't, and there is every rational reason to be a moral person.

That being said, you are free to choose to ignore your rational faculty if you wish. I will not coddle you for it, nor support you when your inability to function irrationally forever catches up to you, nor will I allow you to take by force from me that which you would need to support your irrational life at my expense (in other words, I will defend myself against any use of force initiated against me). But you are free to try to live on faith and waste your time, energy, and resources trying to appease a supernatural ghost or distant genetic hope, both of which are without solid identity or definition, if that is your wish. Such is the beauty of rational secularism. It is a courtesy very rarely returned by the other side of the coin, who tend to like to use bombs, production stopping protests, or sniper rounds to make the point of "believe in the invisible man I do, or you will be purified."

EDIT: Why is most of s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-m being edited by the forum?

[Alex Bragi]

When I questioned if perhaps we, in fact, all worship in some form, I refer not to worshiping a deity of some kind, but things like money or a beautiful fast shiny car, things that are often adored and obsessed over. Is this not worship of a kind?

And the second part of your reply, well to be honest, I don’t understand most of what you posted. You seem like you’re quoting a whole lot of Richard Dawkins there. Certainly, I know a lot of atheists read and quote his books like Christians read and quote the bible.

As for " I know atheism is right for a few reasons..." I know (not just believe) any theist worth their salt could put forward and equally good argument to support their believes. Therefor, I rest my case. ;)

I'd also like to remind people reading this that we do have a number of good people here, at the Library, who also just happen to be theists. While I understand it's not always easy to understand beliefs different from our own, I feel that it's still important to respect them.

[Alex Bragi]

Oh, something else I wanted to address:


...But you are free to try to live on faith and waste your time, energy, and resources trying to appease a supernatural ghost or distant genetic hope, both of which are without solid identity or definition, if that is your wish....

Don't you know or understand the power of your own mind? So much illness and healing is done by the mind and not the body. You can call it faith, mental power, God, prayer, or anything you like really, but the fact will still remain that it is a fact.

[MMI]

Atheists and theists think they're right:

Agnostics think they're right ... no they're wrong .. no ...

[Rational Head]

Every human is borne free and atheist with full authority to use his rational faculty.

Society makes him slave and Theist and restricts him to use his rational faculty to the full potential.

Every man, who denies the brainwashings by the society remains free, rational and atheist.

[Euryleia]

Another pithy quote. This one from Abraham Lincoln: "I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."

[Rowen]

if people are going to follow something then i hope they get what they are looking for from it but i dont appreciate people who knock on my door every other day ramming it down my throat ...i dont ram my non-belief down theirs.

Icey, amen to that!


Another pithy quote. This one from Abraham Lincoln: "I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."

Euryleia, you have that wonderfull fountain of quotes!! So right..

BTW: I am an agnost, even though I have seen religion maim and hurt people beyond belief...

[Rowen]

A Dutch critisist once wrote: "there will allways be that unsolvable argument between the whorshippers of THE book and those who love books" THE book may the Bible, the Koran but Das Kapital, Mein Kampf and the Red Book have similar effects..

[JimmyJump]

Atheists/Militant Atheists? Are there any in here?

And for those of you who are misinformed, a militant atheist is just a more outspoken atheist who believes in spreading atheism to others. We wield no weapons, lol

Honestly, I detest religion. I believe few things are less dangerous to modern thought than the noxious miasma of respect that shrouds people's religious beliefs: To paraphrase Richard Dawkins in a sentance:

Serious debate is allowed in every field of science, where ridicule is the typical reaction to ridiculous ideas, but if you tell me you can't touch a light switch on a Saturday, I have to respect that!

Why is so much respect given to ideas so utterly devoid of merit? Why is faith, which is basically the ability to stomp your feet and cover your ears in the presence of coherent evidence, seen as a virtue rather than a character flaw? I know that faith has been shoved down your throat from a young age, everywhere you go. It's crept into our language in such a way that it itself is hard to remove without causing serious damage to other ideas: "I have faith in you." "She was faithful in her marriage." I know how dangerous it may seem to attack faith but that's because of it's self preservation strategy: It's burrowed itself so deeply into our morality through simply sharing it's name with other ideas- superior ideas.

I honestly think that the respect for religion in today's time especially lies in the need for a defense. Just as women and children are protected with chivalry and all sorts of moral codes, the idea of religion which has no rational defense and should be so vulnerable to dissection and criticism, has found a way to protect itself with a towering wall of reverence and respect. However, Ideas are not people. I don't think there's anything at all wrong with attacking weak ideas.

I'm an atheist. But one that doesn't have a problem with religion, or rather: with people being religious.

My venom sprouts in the general direction of organized religion, i.e. the church, whatever the inclination of that institution.

If people want to be so narrow-minded as to fall back on religion for their own mental health (now here's a contradiction), who am I to not grant them that freedom.

But, when there's an institution, with its own fabricated set of rules, that takes over the reins and tells people how, when and where to be religious; things go seriously wrong.

Being religious is a private matter between the believer and his/her god. No-one should have the arrogance to come in-between to say how things should be done.

This is my limited response for the time being, as I'm dead-tired and am gonna kip a couple of hours... I'll be back.

[mkemse]

I'm an atheist. But one that doesn't have a problem with religion, or rather: with people being religious.

My venom sprouts in the general direction of organized religion, i.e. the church, whatever the inclination of that institution.

If people want to be so narrow-minded as to fall back on religion for their own mental health (now here's a contradiction), who am I to not grant them that freedom.

But, when there's an institution, with its own fabricated set of rules, that takes over the reins and tells people how, when and where to be religious; things go seriously wrong.

Being religious is a private matter between the believer and his/her god. No-one should have the arrogance to come in-between to say how things should be done.

This is my limited response for the time being, as I'm dead-tired and am gonna kip a couple of hours... I'll be back.


Nicely Put, I will leave it at that

[fetishdj]

There is an argument that humanity, as a species, could not have risen so far without religion. The reason being that it is our initial tendancy to look at things and make patterns out of them which gives us both religion and science. Without that tendancy we have neither. Religion could be argued to be the initial attempts by humanity to explain how the universe works (a pattern is noticed and cannot be explained it is therefore attributed to cosmic forces and eventually attirbuted to a god). As the ability to observe and rationalise improves with time (and the ability to record information in books, something which was driven ironically enough by religion, and later other media helps with this because it means that each successive generation can call on the knowledge of all previous generations) we learn to apply a rational explanation to a greater range of phenomena and therefore remove the need for a mystical explanation.

Its sort of the backwards interpolation of Clark's law - sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. For primative man, everything was a mystery - the stars, gravity, fire, climate, weather - and so everything needed to be explained by a god. As we learnt more, as we ate the apple of the tree of knowledge and so lost our innocent naivity, we learn that there are more and more things that god is not a part of.

[Thorne]

... the ability to record information in books, something which was driven ironically enough by religion...

I think this was probably driven more by economics than by religion. The necessity of recording transactions, keeping track of the flow of goods and money, and especially taxation, required writing and long term storage of information.

True, religion also promoted literacy, but mostly among the religious and the ruling classes, not among the peasantry. At least not until much later, after the advent of the printing press.

This is a simplification, of course. Throughout much of history, and much of the world, religion and government frequently went hand in hand, sometimes to the point of being indistinguishable.

[Thorne]

Its sort of the backwards interpolation of Clark's law - sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. For primative man, everything was a mystery - the stars, gravity, fire, climate, weather - and so everything needed to be explained by a god. As we learnt more, as we ate the apple of the tree of knowledge and so lost our innocent naivity, we learn that there are more and more things that god is not a part of.

Good points, dj. It's long been my contention that, as man's quest for knowledge has progressed, his need for the supernatural explanations of our ancestors has diminished. It is now primarily through religion that these superstitions are perpetuated, and while they still have some grip upon man's psyche, they are gradually losing there hold. And one of the few advantages of political correctness is that it's no longer fashionable (in this country, at least) to persecute those who don't believe the way the churches tell them to.

[Shwenn]

I'm an atheist. I'm a militant atheist. I am, as I think you are, an anti-theist.

And I agree that we should abandon our reverence for tolerance. I think intolerance is quite called for on this very topic.

The religious come into our homes, they try to desicrate that which we hold sacred. And, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

As long as those dimwits keep trying to get ID taught as science, I will say, in as many ways I can think of, that their ridiculous mythology is a work of fiction.

You want to use that one book to dictate who can and can not get married but you don't think you should have to defend the veracity of that tome of unbelievable bullshit? I don't think so. Not while I live and breathe.

[Virulent]

Not while I live and breathe.

Thanks for the segue!

Here's an idea: religion is a red herring. It is used by the consensus of elites who control this world's cultures to keep people angry, or better yet placid.

Theism and anti-theism are at best philosophical positions. Our world has been carelessly overpopulated to a degree vastly beyond the carrying capacity of the planet. There is no sustainable model for this population. Billions will inevitably die; the longer we put it off, the more we damage the environment, reducing the carrying capacity of the planet.

Not sure what I mean? Here's an example... think about how you (or your children, or grand-children, etc...) are going to keep warm in the winter after the shit hits the fan. Burn wood? How much wood is there in your local area? Will it warm everyone who lives in your local area for even one winter? What about food? Do you know what the last sustainable peoples in your area ate (the last sustainable age was the Stone Age; for Americans that would be the Native Americans)? Where I live the Shawnee ate deer, buffalo, berries, and corn. I can assure you that there is very little of the first three still available in the Ohio River Valley. Anyone who survives the collapse around here better fucking love corn.

The fun part is in thinking about how the 5 billion unsustainable inhabitants of this world are going to go; through voluntary population reductions, or involuntary ones.

In a little while, no one will care whether you believed in a god or not; they'll be more interested in the fact that they can't find any potable water.

Fun fact: it takes 3 to 5 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water, and 250 grams of CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere to make the bottle, fill it, and transport it to you.

[lstsl]

First the great mystery:

Why is most of s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-m being edited by the forum?

c-i-a-l-i-s is the brand name of a drug for ED (chemical: tadalafil)

And onwards and upwards!

I myself am neither athiest nor agnostic. I definatly believe in a higher power, although I find the idea of a bearded old guy chilling in the clouds a bit hard to swallow. Someone once said that a god whose primary concern was the day-to-day workings of humans can't be a very important god. I believe there is no overall "plan" but in an infinite amount of time everything that can happen will happen, so the point becomes moot. My beliefs stem from a combination of science, logic, religious texts, and my own moral feelings. I don't see any incongruity of somebody taking this-and-that from a religion and leaving the rest. If it doesn't work, or isn't relevant to you, why follow it just to claim a label? If I read a book about a cowboy who is courteous to his neighbors, helps out with his community, is generally a good guy but, has a nasty habit of shooting Mexicans (no offence to any Mexicans intended), can I not model my life after this cowboy without having to go on a shooting rampage?

Before I go any further I am just going to say that I have a habit of being the devils advocate (OH! interesting topic: Satanists rebelling against Christianity), and many times argue a point that I don't necessarily agree with, just to see if I can, and to get the most out of a conversation. That being said, I have a couple of thought experiments

1) young Jane grew up to be an athiest in a devout Catholic family. Her religious views 'disappointed' her family but they remained as close and loving as any family. When Jane turns 23 her mother is diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer. Her mothers strong faith allows her to approach her imminant demise with a sense of acceptance. This made the transition easier (by no means easy) for the entire family, including athiestic Jane. After her mother passed on, after battling bravely for several months, she willed Jane her cruxifix necklace, through which she drew much of her strength. Jane wore the cruxifix, not out of guilt or new found faith, but rather to draw upon the memory of her mothers stoic strength in the face of what, for most people, is the most traumatic experience of their life (i.e the end of it). She found something beyond herself to believe in. Religion provides people with symbols, which are merely an external focus to help you find what is already inside of you.

I think that most people on this thread are from the "Western world" and as such have a warped view of... perspective is the only word coming to mind but it's not quite right... scale maybe? We exist in massive, MASSIVE societies, made even bigger by the advent of the internet. Someone previously stated that some athiests believe in no higher power than the individual, that some may be contemptable of the so-called (and in some cases self-professed) sheep. This is all fine and dandy to be a cut-throat and build up your personal fortune on the gullibility and stupidity of other people, but to put the individual ahead of the society is, literally, cancerous. Since we live in these gigantic societies there is more of a buffer zone, an individual can't make too much of a dent in the system. But what of Africa? For the most part, the countries we see on the map are there only for the convenience of the UN. There exist hundreds of tribes who are just that: tribes. Just like you or me, they have different interests, ideas, dreams from person to person even within the same small tribe. If one person was to start recklessly pursuing personal gain at the expense of others, trouble follows quickly.

Which brings us to
2) there is a native who is put into non-specific situation where his own personal sacrifice (that of his life) will save all 23 other members of his tribe. His failure to lay down his life will surely result in the deaths of everyone but himself. How long do you think this individual will survive by himself in the African wilderness, with no social support, if he chooses the latter option?
I do not believe that human beings are individuals. We merely exist within the context of our society. Hitler took this view to the extreme, just as the Spaniards in charge of the Inquisition took their religious views to the extreme.

As others on this thread before me have said, religion is the precurser to science. The old gods were given birth out of the cold, dark night as the first primordial humans huddled around the fire in fear of what they could not understand. Just like the case of the modern-day bully and geek, they thought to appease their nameless fears, and in this way control them. In some places (like Africa), it is important to have something that ties a community together like religion, if for no other reason than it is important to know there is a group of people you can count on no matter what. The problem seems to me not to be one of religion or spirituality, but of extremism.


In closing, I would just like to say: Have you ever seen an atom? Ever likely to?


PS: I would like to say just one thing to all the people who dispute the theory of evolution: How many songs could Jesus fit on his iPod?

[Virulent]

I'm going to try and extract the premises from the prose. Let me know if I miss.


I definatly believe in a higher power ... a god whose primary concern was the day-to-day workings of humans can't be a very important god... I believe there is no overall "plan"... My beliefs stem from a combination of science, logic, religious texts, and my own moral feelings... I don't see any incongruity of somebody taking this-and-that from a religion and leaving the rest. If it doesn't work...

Summary: Spinozan deist. Fair enough?

Thought experiment #1... why does x wear her mother's crucifix?

Your answer: "Religion provides people with symbols, which are merely an external focus to help you find what is already inside of you."

I think its simpler than that. x is simply sentimental. Example: the 20th century appropriation of the swastika. Symbols mean whatever we say they mean. Further, to claim a social definition of a symbol exists is provably false, as no two people apprehend the same object the exact same way, as Husserl and Heidegger pointed out in their writings on phenomenology.


I think that most people on this thread are from the "Western world" and as such have a warped view of... perspective is the only word coming to mind but it's not quite right... scale maybe? We exist in massive, MASSIVE...

What is your premise? If your argument is that truth is relative and that we only have access to "Western truth", then I think you're using a useless definition of truth.

Thought experiment #2... why do individuals sacrifice themselves for society?

Your answer (paraphrased): individuals will not survive without social support

You're saying that individuals must (at least occasionally) be willing to sacrifice everything for the good of their society, which as you note by reference to Hitler, is the definition of fascism.

Obviously I disagree completely. I'm kind of surprised too - most rational people only advocate fascism unintentionally. Any just society is based upon free association; any society that uses compulsion should be destroyed by any means convenient.

Humans don't need long-term compulsory (and especially not statist) societies to exist. Most Stone Age peoples lived in fluid "bands"; most Native Americans in particular "split" their encampments during the hunting season into family units, and reformed in the winter (or not - it was not unusual for a family unit to join another encampment if that's where they found themselves when snow came). Its simply false to claim that human beings can't survive without society - it is indeed a fact that we spent the majority of our existence surviving without any inconvenient associations.


it is important to know there is a group of people you can count on no matter what.

No such thing.


In closing, I would just like to say: Have you ever seen an atom? Ever likely to?

No. Do you have a premise?

[lstsl]

I'm going to try and extract the premises from the prose. Let me know if I miss.

Summary: Spinozan deist. Fair enough?

I don't know what that means?

Thought experiment #1... why does x wear her mother's crucifix?

Your answer: "Religion provides people with symbols, which are merely an external focus to help you find what is already inside of you."

I think its simpler than that. x is simply sentimental. Example: the 20th century appropriation of the swastika. Symbols mean whatever we say they mean.

Actually that is exactly the point I was trying to make. x wears the cruxifix and draws strength "from it" just as her mother did, but for completely different reasons. I was trying to illustrate that a person can wear a cruxifix (or swastika or what-have-you) without having to identify with the larger group that symbol is associated with (although you should deffinatly think twice before wearing a swastika in public).

What is your premise? If your argument is that truth is relative and that we only have access to "Western truth", then I think you're using a useless definition of truth.

Not at all. What I'm saying here is that we are biased in our opinions of individuals and how they should act in their society, when the majority of the world is not set up like us. For instance, I find it mind-boggling that over half the worlds population has never made a phone call, something I take for granted about every other day.

Thought experiment #2... why do individuals sacrifice themselves for society?

Your answer (paraphrased): individuals will not survive without social support

You're saying that individuals must (at least occasionally) be willing to sacrifice everything for the good of their society, which as you note by reference to Hitler, is the definition of fascism.

Obviously I disagree completely. I'm kind of surprised too - most rational people only advocate fascism unintentionally. Any just society is based upon free association; any society that uses compulsion should be destroyed by any means convenient.

I half-wrote a reply to this before realizing I was getting way off topic. If you would like to continue this particular thread on facism Virulent, please PM me, as I would be delighted to disscuss this with you:)

Humans don't need long-term compulsory (and especially not statist) societies to exist. Most Stone Age peoples lived in fluid "bands"; most Native Americans in particular "split" their encampments during the hunting season into family units, and reformed in the winter (or not - it was not unusual for a family unit to join another encampment if that's where they found themselves when snow came). Its simply false to claim that human beings can't survive without society - it is indeed a fact that we spent the majority of our existence surviving without any inconvenient associations.

This arguement actually supports my theory. The natives broke down into family units in the summer, not individual humans running around trying to survive. Just because they were more fluid in their arrangments doesn't mean they didn't have societies. Look all over the world and you will not find a single example of an individualist population (i.e everybody in the area acting completely autonomously). There are always examples of hermits and such but these are mostly isolated occurances, by no means the 'norm'. If you were a native American in one of the little family units and were engaging in behaviour that was detrimental to that unit you can bet you'd find yourself dead or on your own pretty quickly.

No such thing.
The Amish. I have a hard time finding a few friends to help me move my furniture, let alone getting 200 people to build a barn without power tools.

No. Do you have a premise?

Only this: people believe in atoms, something they cannot directly experience for themselves, because they go to school where they are told that atoms make up everything. People who go to church are told that God (something they cannot directly experience) makes up everything. What's the difference? Scientists now occupy the position preists and clergymen did in the past, why won't they become corrupt and use their new positions of power to gain more power? Everybody acts like scientists are saints (hahaha, I made a funny!), but their motives aren't necessarily pure. Today, science is an industry and there is money to be had. If the difference between despotism and millions of dollars is fudging your test results a little... kah-CHING!!!

[Thorne]

people believe in atoms, something they cannot directly experience for themselves, because they go to school where they are told that atoms make up everything. People who go to church are told that God (something they cannot directly experience) makes up everything. What's the difference?

The term "atoms" is a label, used to describe a state of matter which scientists have deduced from experimentation and observation. (Actually, I think they have actually seen the atom, through electron microscopes or something similar, but I'm not sure of it.) It's like using the term "chair" to describe a piece of furniture which is used for sitting. You can call it anything you like, but it's purpose is still the same.

So too with the atom. Scientists are able, repeatedly and quantifiably, to isolate discrete particles of matter which they term atoms. And when they treat these atoms to certain experiments, under certain conditions, they will react in predictable, and repeatable, ways.

This is the difference between science and religion. You don't have to take anything on faith. If someone has achieved a certain result in science, you can achieve the same result by performing the same test. It's not necessary to believe in atoms. You just have to do the experiments yourself to show that they do, indeed, exist.

[Shwenn]

Here's an idea: religion is a red herring. It is used by the consensus of elites who control this world's cultures to keep people angry, or better yet placid.

Dan Dennett compares religion to one of those organisms that hijacks it's host, causing it to act in opposition to its own safety in order to further the life cycle of the organism. Like the fluke that causes the ant to climb to the top of a blade of grass, increasing the liklihood of it being eaten by a cow or a sheep.

[Shwenn]

Summary: Spinozan deist. Fair enough?

I don't know what that means?

....

Only this: people believe in atoms, something they cannot directly experience for themselves, because they go to school where they are told that atoms make up everything. People who go to church are told that God (something they cannot directly experience) makes up everything. What's the difference? Scientists now occupy the position preists and clergymen did in the past, why won't they become corrupt and use their new positions of power to gain more power? Everybody acts like scientists are saints (hahaha, I made a funny!), but their motives aren't necessarily pure. Today, science is an industry and there is money to be had. If the difference between despotism and millions of dollars is fudging your test results a little... kah-CHING!!!

First, Spinoza's God is basically the universe itself.

And, to add to Thorne's post, about the verifiability of atoms, I'd like to mention something about science itself.

It's called peer review. Getting published in science is like running a gauntlet. It is notoriously difficult. If you fudge your test results, your vicious peers will find out and they will roast you over an open flame. I worked on an experiment designed to disprove Einstein's relativity. Einsein, the man is considered something of a science God, not just a saint. And we felt we were paying the man respect by trying to show he was wrong.

There is no comparisson between the scientific community today and the religious community of old. None at all.

To us, nothing is sacred. We challenge everything. We call everything into doubt.

[denuseri]

it is only through consistently challenging all viewpoints that we achieve anything in regards to human understanding

socrates was one of the first to have started it with the old school scientists (yes i will argue till i am blue in the face that allmost all the old philosophers were scientists)

even in the filed of theology revision and peer review happens even if its not er aparrent, otherwise new religions would never form, desintion in the ranks in both science and religion has often resulted in "new" ways of looking at the world

by definition science is a "belief" system, i can choose to believe the results of any given experiments validity or not, sometimes wieghted with the review of many others and somtimes not, (look at current beliefs of different scientists about mars and water there etc) a given scientists view on somethings like say "what killed the dinosaurs" can be just as controvesial and filled with preconsieved ideas as a religious belief

each religion is in a way, an on-going "experiement" the hypothesis is the stated dogma for each belief system, the experment itself is the way the paticular religions followers laymen leaders etc conduct thier lives, and the results of the experiment are found out upon ones death,

ocums razor or not, is the prossess of the universe just some random reactions in time? or is it by design? both religion and science attempt to answer the question

for it is the question that drives us

[lstsl]

First, Spinoza's God is basically the universe itself.

And, to add to Thorne's post, about the verifiability of atoms, I'd like to mention something about science itself.

It's called peer review. Getting published in science is like running a gauntlet. It is notoriously difficult. If you fudge your test results, your vicious peers will find out and they will roast you over an open flame. I worked on an experiment designed to disprove Einstein's relativity. Einsein, the man is considered something of a science God, not just a saint. And we felt we were paying the man respect by trying to show he was wrong.

There is no comparisson between the scientific community today and the religious community of old. None at all.

To us, nothing is sacred. We challenge everything. We call everything into doubt.


Thank you for explaining Spinoza.

Now the first schools in Europe after Rome collapsed.... where would you find them... Hmmm, let me think....... could it possibly be in A MONESTARY?? Damn those tricky, religious monks. I bet they were going to corrupt all that juicy knowledge they had preserved to lend weight to the Intelligent Design arguement.

The truth is not all scientists are saints, neither are all saints. There are some scientists that are truely in it for the greater good of mankind, just as there have been many religious figures throughout history whose primary concern was furthering humanity. On the flip side, there are just as many (if not more) scientists who are in the game for their own personal gain. People are people no matter what label you stick on them, some are selfless, some will take advantage of any situation they come upon, sayin that there is no comparison between religion and science is just ignorant.

PS nobody ever has seen an atom. They may have seen something on a TV screen but just because you see it on TV doesn't make it real.

PPS I believe in atoms, I'm just using it as an example that there are things we cannot see, feel, taste, smell or hear, and therefore forced to take on faith.

[Thorne]

even in the filed of theology revision and peer review happens even if its not er aparrent, otherwise new religions would never form, desintion in the ranks in both science and religion has often resulted in "new" ways of looking at the world
While there are always exceptions, most dissension over the last 2000 years has been more in the manner in which the leadership was running things than in any real theological differences. They all still worship the same God, it's just how they do it and who gets to say how it's done that they argue over.


by definition science is a "belief" system, i can choose to believe the results of any given experiments validity or not, sometimes wieghted with the review of many others and somtimes not, (look at current beliefs of different scientists about mars and water there etc) a given scientists view on somethings like say "what killed the dinosaurs" can be just as controvesial and filled with preconsieved ideas as a religious belief
Yes, to some extent this is so. But with science you can always perform the experiment yourself, to determine the truth of the matter. True, in those areas where interpretation of data is paramount, such as 'What killed the dinosaurs?', interpretations can vary tremendously. But each side of the argument must be able to back up their interpretation with physical evidence of some sort, and not just say it's so because and ancient book says it's so!


ocums razor or not, is the prossess of the universe just some random reactions in time? or is it by design? both religion and science attempt to answer the question
Most religions I'm familiar with (Judeo/Christian primarily) don't attempt to answer anything. They believe they already have all the answers. And their answers are the only correct answers. Most scientists know, or at least should know, that any answers they may find are tentative at best. New data, or new understanding of old data, can change the way science thinks about almost anything. But all new data, or interpretations, will undergo rigorous scrutiny and testing, to insure that everything is kosher!


for it is the question that drives us
Amen!

[denuseri]

oh Thorne i dissagree sir,
it is the very questions that each religion is attempting to answer in its own way, by each religions begining its birf and subsequent struggle often over a long period of history to formulate its dogma,, (much like science)

just because the big three (christians, jews, and muslims) claim to whorship the same god, doesnt mean the rest of the hundreds of religions do so, nor does it mean that all of thier answers/ questions are written in stone,, i just mean that the proccesss of questions brings new religions to the scene in thier own attempts to answer and or ask the questions that previous religions did not or failed to answer specifically enough,

if there is some asscociation between thier dieties, mabey its because they have come to a consences of sorts, much like scientists do, like: most all scientists now days agree the wolrd revolves around the sun, where as in the past they did not

new religions and belief systems are developed all the time, some in very recent history, new sects of christians etc too, look at the new angelican church with its recent break from the old order on the question of homosexuals in the church, or look at the scientology, a very recently developed religion, or for that matter the new age wiccan movement, or even my own religion bahai, another (relativly new arrival historically speaking) thier are also many differential differences in hindu , buddist and shinto beliefs complete with on going rivalries etc.

as for the experimental side of religion, we each and everyone of us preform our own experiment as we live our lives, even if you choose to be an athiest you are part of the religious experment, (mabey as a control group lol)
case in point, i am born jewish, yet raised lutheran, but studdied budism and still practice its tantric sects forms, while embracing my faith in bahai,

we are each like ongoing religious experiments, some mutat or change one form for another others stick to the status quo of thier upbringings and yet others choose to reject the concepts of divinity

i agree it seems as if most religions appear to nopt be asking questions, so much as saying this is how it is,, but each time a new sect forms or a entirely new religion forms it does indeed attempt to answer the questions that its predessesors asked etc often building on thier work, as for proof, we could argue all day about recordable proof of the divine, i know some buddists that have no problems with the idea of a diety and or science co existing

i will however agree that at least in most cases regaurding religion without that "leap of faith" exposed by Keirkagaurd , all yu have is speculation

does a divine being exist? we could argue all day,,,,,,,allmost as much as i would argue with you that a single asteroid didnt destroy the dinosaurs

[Thorne]

denuseri, I think what you are calling religion should more aptly be called faith. There are, indeed, many different faiths in the world, and people are always modifying their faith to better reflect their own attitudes and beliefs. Religion, on the other hand, tends to codify belief systems, cast them in stone, as it were, and then persecute those who try to diverge from that system. Yes, I realize this is extremely generalized, but it's how I view them.

There is no valid reason that faith and science cannot coexist, as you have said. In fact, there is much in science that we do take on faith, to one extent or another. As an example, science tells us that the world is round, not flat. Our eyes tell us the opposite, but we generally accept, on faith, that the scientists are telling us the truth. There are experiments which we, as lay people, can perform which demonstrate the validity of this statement, but the vast majority of people don't bother to perform them. It's not really necessary. Those experiments have been performed, and documented, by so many others that I, for one, am willing to accept that the world is, indeed, round.

But when it comes to a divine deity, a supreme being, the only evidence which can be presented is hearsay. There is no experiment which can show that God, or Jupiter, or Zeus, or Odin really exists. It is something which must be taken on faith. And I am not willing to do that.

Of course the opposite is true as well. I cannot, nor can anyone else, prove that God does not exist. All we can say is that there is no concrete evidence to support the idea of his existence. One can believe either way and not necessarily be wrong, or right.

With religion, however, you are accepting the tenets which that religion is formed on, and that includes the absolute, positive, no doubt belief that God exists. There's no room for doubt, no room for argument, they say it is so and you'd damned well better believe it, or else. This is the exact opposite of science. And this I cannot, and will not, accept.

Again, their are always exceptions, and I feel that the newer religions, those which have started up completely on their own, like Scientology, or those which have broken away from other, more established religions, tend to be less rigid in their belief systems, more willing to accept some latitude, at least in minor issues. But the older, more established, and larger religions have maintained their systems for so long, and over such a large population, that there is little room for variations. That's why groups break away from them, after all.

[Thorne]

allmost as much as i would argue with you that a single asteroid didnt destroy the dinosaurs

I'm taking this one on separately, as I don't know if it belongs in a religion thread.

No one claims, with absolute certainty, that a single asteroid destroyed the dinosaurs. In fact, there are still dinosaurs alive today. Alligators and crocodiles, as well as sharks and some other sea creatures, are virtually unchanged from 100 million years ago.

But there is evidence to suggest that the asteroid which struck the Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago caused such a disruption in the Earth's climate that the large dinosaurs, the "thunder lizards" died out. There is ample evidence to show that an asteroid did, indeed, strike the Earth at that time. There are calculations which show that it would have had to be of a certain mass striking at a certain speed in order to have covered the globe with the debris layer which scientists have found. And to date there is no evidence to show that any large populations of dinosaurs (other than those few which I mentioned) survived past that impact period.

I don't claim to have the type of education which would allow me to interpret the kinds of data that is being discussed here, but I know that there are many scientists who do have that education and who do agree with the interpretation.And there are many who do not agree. By studying both sides of the issue I have come to the conclusion that this particular asteroid strike was most likely responsible for the ultimate extinction of most of the Earth's species. The arguments in favor make more sense to me than those against.

That does not mean that this is a fact! It's just a theory, and evidence could turn up tomorrow which will overturn it. That's the beauty of science. We are always learning new things, and sometimes the old things are tossed out like old garbage. They don't fit anymore.

[companioncube#3]

Hello, everyone. I'll start by saying that this is my first post in these forums, and that I'm happy to have found a thread of like-minded people. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that those with unconventional appetites for the physical are also intellectually curious, untamed, creative and interesting. Still, critical thinkers are, in my experience, rare enough that to encounter any number of them in one place delivers unabashed joy to me. So, thank you to everyone.

My one disappointment is that almost everyone here is more-or-less in agreement (where are the evangelical wingnuts or new-age flakes when you need them? I refuse to believe that they don't also crave a good spanking every now and again). Moreover, where I am inclined to disagree - for instance, I think denuseri is wrong to characterize science as a "belief" system - Thorne has already voiced my opinions, and probably more eloquently than I could. But perhaps I can offer some unique insight.

I was raised Roman Catholic and went to a religious private high school. It was the kind of school that maintained strong ties to traditional values while offering an entirely secular education. I was not taught by nuns, evolution was sacrosanct in biology class and my religion class would be better characterized as a study in ethics and the history of world religions. That being said, we started the day with a prayer and attended mass every Tuesday. We did tons of charity work but our charities were not tied to any particular religion. All this to say, although I had by this time decided that I was an atheist I enjoyed my time there, and I credit the religious mission of the school indirectly. My family life was not great, and the religiously-grounded traditions gave the school a real sense of community and common purpose. It was an environment that made me feel welcome and safe (and I was the kind of student who argued for atheism in religion class and championed the Liberal cause at debating tournaments; I could not have been more of an outsider philosophically).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while religion, and indeed all dogma which presumes to elevate itself above criticism, is contemptible if only for their arrogance in so elevating themselves above other ideas, political, social and spiritual alike, I understand the appeal. And although Enlightenment-inspired reverence of the individual is inherently attractive to someone as misanthropic as I am (sometimes), I do not think that we can ignore the fact that we are (and I think this is a scientifically sound statement) a small-group, socially inclined animal which has evolved to thrive in strong, small communities. I think it is for this reason that otherwise sane, intelligent, educated people flock to what Dawkins might call citadels of silliness on Sundays to partake in the ritual cannibalism and worship of a cracker. People give in because this is what ties them to their neighbour, this is what ties them to their parents, and this is what defines them culturally. It's a sense of belonging, more than anything else, that I think organized religion offers people that is so seductive.

It's for this reason that I occasionally find the militant-atheists like Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, Harris, Meyers and the rest a little shrill and counterproductive to their own cause. People aren't going to stop worshipping a cracker because you laugh at them can call them stupid for worshipping a cracker. They're going to stop when our culture generates new social structures which strengthen the community in much the same way that religions have for the past two centuries. I know in some cities there are "humanist community centers" where like-minded individuals and families gather every weekend to eat, laugh, exchange ideas and organize charitable events. This is the kind of thing I hope will catch on and grow.

But don't misunderstand. I am a fan of Dawkins and his ilk most of the time. Their flagrant irreverence for religious silliness is important, if only to illustrate the point that, in a democratic society, no idea is sacred.

[Shwenn]

companioncube#3,

Here is one of my favorite YouTube videos, ever. I share it because I think you'll love it as much as I do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2xGIwQfik

[companioncube#3]

***AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH***

Shwenn, you sent me the Tyson-Dawkins smackdown from the first Beyond Belief conference!!! Thank you! I've seen it already (I've watched the entire conference over at thesciencenetwork.org), but I enjoyed watching it again. While I mostly agree with Tyson, the cool reply, by Dawkins, "I gratefully accept the rebuke" made me laugh out loud.

Thanks.

[companioncube#3]

One last thing. I'd pay good money for a T-shirt that says, "SCIENCE IS INTERESTING, AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE, YOU CAN FUCK OFF."

[Shwenn]

I want that t-shirt, now. Why must you make me yearn for something I can never have?

[DarkPoet]

Why not? http://www.cafepress.com/

[Thorne]

companioncube#3

Thank you for your kind statement. I would rank my own eloquence as being only slightly greater than my physical beauty, which places me somewhere about the level of a tree stump.

As for your comments regarding religion and community, I think there is a difference, to some extent,between a religion and a church of that religion. The churches provide a place for communities of like minded people to come together, for whatever reasons, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with religion. Yes, the religious experience is an integral part of that, but the belief system does not, in my opinion, foster the community experience. I feel that the churches offer the sense of community as a means of attracting people in order to, eventually, immerse them in the belief system.

What I'm trying to say is that the neighborhood churches/temples/mosques can do an inordinate amount of good for their communities, but that the rigid, uncompromising belief systems they preach make their motives suspect in my mind.

As for science being interesting, the statement, "SCIENCE IS INTERESTING, AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE, YOU CAN FUCK OFF" is no less narrow-minded and arrogant than the statement, "GOD IS THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE, AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE I'LL TORTURE YOU INTO SUBMISSION."

Yes, I think science is interesting. But if you are going to teach science, and try to make others see it as interesting, you have to make it entertaining, as well. Isaac Asimov, for many years, wrote science essays for several Sci-Fi magazines. I have many books containing his collected essays. They are, almost without exception, informative, interesting and entertaining. I have also seen essays, by other scientists, which are dry, boring and far too detailed, even if they are, ultimately, informative. You attract the non-scientist to the science through entertainment much better than through text books. That's why so many of the shows on the Science Channel, Discovery Channel, and other like them, are so well received.

[Shwenn]

As for science being interesting, the statement, "SCIENCE IS INTERESTING, AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE, YOU CAN FUCK OFF" is no less narrow-minded and arrogant than the statement, "GOD IS THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE, AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE I'LL TORTURE YOU INTO SUBMISSION."

That's the joke, Thorne. That's what makes it so hilarious.

[Thorne]

That's the joke, Thorne. That's what makes it so hilarious.

Must be a younger generation thing, then. I don't see the humor.

[Kuskovian]

LOL. Good thing I have had Seri on restriction from here recently, she was in the process of "baiting" a few of you with her Deccan-Traps counter theory to dinosuar extinction.

Question for a side bar

: Do you accept everything a scientist tells you, or do you go out and preform the "experiments" for yourself?

If so which experimental procedures do you reproduce and which do you take on good "faith"?

Science and religion; two sides of the same coin from my perspective.

Of course one will take from each what they will.

And it harm not others do as thou wilt.

[companioncube#3]

@Thorne,

re: SCIENCE IS INTERESTING & IF YOU DON'T AGREE, YOU CAN FUCK OFF...


Must be a younger generation thing, then. I don't see the humor.

It's tongue-and-cheek, of course. When I am acting as a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses (one of my part-time jobs while I finish my degree), a significant slice of my efforts is directed at framing the message properly. I try to tell science as a story, giving historical context for the results I'm presenting and prospects for the future, possible applications in other areas which might matter to students' lives. I make (bad) jokes. As I said, I fall squarely in Tyson's camp when it comes to communicating science. Tyson, incidentally, is one of my favourite contemporary popular science writers. I was happy to see you refer to Asimov. His work is another kind of celebration of science for the fiction-loving layperson.

re: Church and community


What I'm trying to say is that the neighborhood churches/temples/mosques can do an inordinate amount of good for their communities, but that the rigid, uncompromising belief systems they preach make their motives suspect in my mind.

We are in complete agreement. This is exactly what I think, too. It is not to say that the belief system is necessary in order to generate the community, but this is something that organized religion often offers adherents that secularists would do well to understand. We cannot hope to get rid of the toxic components of religion without having a way of preserving, in one form or another, all the good it has done and continues to do.

@Kuskovian:

: Do you accept everything a scientist tells you, or do you go out and preform the "experiments" for yourself?

If so which experimental procedures do you reproduce and which do you take on good "faith"?

Science and religion; two sides of the same coin from my perspective.

Of course one will take from each what they will.

And it harm not others do as thou wilt.

You are far off the mark here. You really are off. Believing what scientists tell me is true is nothing at all like believing what a priest tells me is true. You are stretching the meaning of the word "faith" here until it is entirely useless for the purposes of this discussion.

Let me show you. An anecdote. My research supervisor comes into our weekly seminar and tells me how her research is going, that she's excited to report that she has found this new genetic marker for skin cancer in this certain species of mouse. I sit there and I write down the notes, reproduce the data on a term test to get an A, and then after that I use her research as an example when teaching some students the basics of malignancy. Mind you, I haven't read through her data, I haven't seen her mice, and I know that her work is in the early stages and hasn't been published (that is to say, it hasn't gone through peer-review). You would say that I am taking her results on "faith." Okay.

So let's go to another scenario. I am in church and I am told my a priest that there is an all-knowing, all-loving god in the sky who had a son a long time ago born of a virgin in a manger and who later died for my sins and three days later, he rose from the dead and that's why we have Easter. As evidence he points to his bible. If I believed him, you would call that "faith." Okay.

I would say that using the word "faith" to describe my credulity in both these cases is misleading and quite frankly, disingenuous. The first scenario describes the kind of reasonable belief that everyone engages in, not only in science but in every-day life. Sure. My research supervisor could be lying to me. Her numbers could be fudged. Her analysis could be flawed. But why stop there? Perhaps I don't have a research supervisor at all, and I'm actually a psychiatric patient in a mental institution who just imagined the whole thing. You see, if you use the word "faith" to indiscriminately describe belief in any piece of information that one does not know for certain, then you will end up spiralling down into this maddening pit of Cartesian scepticism that sucks all meaning out of the debate we were trying to have in the first place.

In stark contrast to the first, the second scenario is so unreasonable, so far-fetched, so outlandish, that you actually have to suspend all critical thought to swallow it. And that's exactly what the religious types want you to do. In the realm of religion, faith without evidence is celebrated. It is the ideal. It is a prerequisite for piety. Ask too many questions and you will be told that this is a character-flaw, that you have to let go of your doubts and give yourself over to god. Want an explanation of how a virgin could give birth? You have to have faith. Want an explanation of how a man three days dead could come back to life? You have to have faith. Want to know where God came from in the first place, and why a being so powerful and grand would care what we mere mortals do with our Sunday mornings, and who we slept with the night before, and if we used birth control and what kind of birth control it was because some kinds are eviller than others? You have to have faith.

This is the exact opposite of what would happen if I were to go to my research supervisor and ask to see her evidence for the cancer marker. Her face would light up and she'd down me in laboratory notes. She'd rattle on about her procedure and results until I fell asleep or ran away. And then, if I had the audacity to question her methods, scrutinize the data, bring up conflicting results in the literature, she'd probably be more impressed than defensive. After all, once the work is published, it will be scrutinized and questioned by every other scientist in the field. Other laboratories will repeat her experiments and if the data cannot be reproduced, she will be discredited. Unlike religion, critical inquiry is at the heart of any truly scientific endeavour. And unlike religion, scientific theories have very clear criteria for being falsified.

And I guess that's really the crux of it. Science is interested in building models of the world which predict the results of experiments, and can be falsified by experiments. Religion has no such procedure for self-improvement. Why would it? God is perfect, the word of god is perfect, the will of god is absolute and who are we to question it?

So don't tell me that science and religion are two sides of the same coin. They are in fact so different that if one were a coin, the other would be sweet potato pie.

[Rational Head]

Execellent post by companioncube.

Science says God is a human construct.

I do consider god is a human construct.
I am an atheist, i cannot be agnostic cos reason defies agnosticism.

But what is energy?

Is energy also a "human construct"?

Is energy a human construct?

Or is it better to ask: Just "How energy functions?"
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
I will try to bring together for discussion what I think it may be a conclusion of this topic!

My postulate that God is a human construct was generally accepted, but the 2nd part of the question was not, that means God and Energy are not the same things, so the argumant of the believers that God is energy is hereby refuted. Energy is not a human construct.

If we ask what is energy, then then the answer may be a good or a bad definition of a quality, many of us will say energy is the God or my God or Nature, or Buddhah etc.

If we ask How energy functions, then the answer may demonstrate the Proccess, as the definition "the capacity to perform work". But where is here the limit put for these capacity?

The oceans have an tremendous thermal energy capacity, but we can hardly gain some work here because the thermal potential is not enough for our mashines.

We all agree that matter and energy interchange for us, but are we equiped with the suitable instruments to recognize these processes? Atomon by the atomists means a partickle wich cannot be further split.

Do we have find the atoms until now? Are we sure that by by the fusion of +e and -e do not remain some very tiny particles, which cannot be detected? Already neutrino has no mass when it is not moving.

So there is quite sure that we probably never get an answer to this question:
-What is energy?
but to the question:

-"How energy functions?"

And here we will get a good answer only if we do not involve divine poewers. It was not a missing point that the atomists never put the question about the origin of the atoms. They new the problems of the answer.

So the same is here valid for the origin of the energy!
One I know that I know nothing!

[Rational Head]

P.S why did i brought the issue of energy or atomist philosophy here?Umm, is energy an english word?? a english word with greek roots
Like energeia from ergon(meaning work))

similarly, God is an english word.

In sanskrit, many similar words are there for God.
like paramtma, Ishwara, Shakti, varun, agni..etc..so many..
all defines energy..
we considers that The construction of universe(at this point theres no reason to discuss howit was constructed)is work..

That is, Universe was started, it was a work, the work was done by energy(Shakti,Urja,Ishwar,Pamatma...etc..)

That energy keeps changing the forms, some of the forms we knows through our perceptions an senses, some more energy forms, we came to know Via scienctific developments(known as Vigyan)
Basically, all is shakti, Energy, Urja Ishwar..

Various forms of energies are respectable, cos they are in actual sense respectable, like, we are dependent on solar energies,we are dependent on water energy, air energy, we are dependent on material energy(Mterial inothing but a form of energy)

Life is energy,energy keeps changing its form, it never dies, it never takes birth, but its manifestation or cvhanging forms, creates different sets of possibilities, one of the set is human life.

Human is most improoved form of energy in alive world..(It is made of Five tatva's elements..other animals are having some less tatva's..and then there are non-living bodies too)
But basic is energy for every creation, or work.

[Shwenn]

@Thorne,

re: SCIENCE IS INTERESTING & IF YOU DON'T AGREE, YOU CAN FUCK OFF...



It's tongue-and-cheek, of course. When I am acting as a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses (one of my part-time jobs while I finish my degree), a significant slice of my efforts is directed at framing the message properly.

I'm the same way as companioncube. I tutored physics at university and I worked very hard at framing the message. My favorite trick, which I picked up from my Cal 2 professor, was that I never asked, "Do you understand?" I only asked, "Do you agree?" I didn't want them to feel ashamed and stupid for not getting it. I wanted them to argue with me so I could understand their frame of mind and be in a better position to structure the information in a way they could absorb it.

I think most people in the scientific community feel that way. We are passionate about sharing our love. To the point of being rather annoying.

That is what is so funny. It's just so wrong and so completely out of character.

See, Tyson's issue with Dawkins is that he isn't like that. And he isn't. I understand why he isn't like that. He's an evolutionary biologist and so he's been under attack his whole career because of his field. You can only expect so much patience from a person.

But Dawkins understood why Tyson had a problem with his attitude. He told that story only to illustrate that, not only is it possible for a person in the scientific community to abandon this desire to foment interest, but he knew of one who was at the absolute opposite extreme.

I guarantee you that just about every person in that room who laughed at that story shared our desire to inspire a love of science. Even Tyson laughed. It's just a funny story.

[Thorne]

@Thorne,

re: SCIENCE IS INTERESTING & IF YOU DON'T AGREE, YOU CAN FUCK OFF...

It's tongue-and-cheek, of course. When I am acting as a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses (one of my part-time jobs while I finish my degree), a significant slice of my efforts is directed at framing the message properly. I try to tell science as a story, giving historical context for the results I'm presenting and prospects for the future, possible applications in other areas which might matter to students' lives. I make (bad) jokes. As I said, I fall squarely in Tyson's camp when it comes to communicating science. Tyson, incidentally, is one of my favourite contemporary popular science writers. I was happy to see you refer to Asimov. His work is another kind of celebration of science for the fiction-loving layperson.

Yes, I understand that it's tongue in cheek. I suppose my own sense of humor is too straight (unlikely) or far to warped (that's more likely) to get a laugh from it. To each his own.

As for Tyson, I've just recently bought a copy of his book, "Death by Black Hole" but haven't had a chance to read it yet. I've seen him many times on TV science programs and was impressed enough to remember who he is, so I thought I'd give it a try.

And Asimov's works which I mentioned were not his fiction, but his science essays. Ranging from astronomy through zoology, and everything in between, I always found his works both entertaining (with one exception, which dealt with the inner workings of proteins and amino acids) and educational. That's not to say I haven't also enjoyed his fiction: I have.

[companioncube#3]

@ Thorne, re: Asimov:

I stand duly embarrassed. I was not even aware of Asimov's non-fiction. When I was in high school I read his robot series (Robots of Dawn, Robots&Empire... ). I quick Wikipedia search has given me a ton of Asimov's nonfiction to browse. Thanks alot!

[Thorne]

@ Thorne, re: Asimov:

I stand duly embarrassed. I was not even aware of Asimov's non-fiction. When I was in high school I read his robot series (Robots of Dawn, Robots&Empire... ). I quick Wikipedia search has given me a ton of Asimov's nonfiction to browse. Thanks alot!

You're quite welcome. But you make me feel old. Robots of Dawn wasn't published until I was 15 year OUT of high school! And Robots & Empire 2 years after that!

[Thorne]

Question for a side bar
: Do you accept everything a scientist tells you, or do you go out and preform the "experiments" for yourself?

If so which experimental procedures do you reproduce and which do you take on good "faith"?

I have done some experiments in the past, some during school, in astronomy, physics and chemistry, and some on my own, in astronomy and optics. Generally they were relatively easy tests of basic laws of the subject, but these form the basis of all that comes after them.

But it is true that almost all scientific "truths" I tend to accept on faith, providing there is sufficient documentation and agreement among a large number of other scientists. A good example is the cold fusion fiasco of the 90's. Everything I'd ever read said that fusion required extremely high temperatures and pressures to occur, yet the men involved in this claimed they were getting fusion at room temperature and 1 atmosphere pressure. I was very skeptical, of their claims, despite the hullabaloo raised by the media. As it turned out, their claims were discounted when other scientists were unable to duplicate their results.

So, while there is a certain amount of faith involved, something which flies in the face of common sense and established knowledge has to be taken with a grain of salt. But even these, if verified by independent researchers, can find their way into mainstream science.

Then there are the theoretical aspects, where much of what is stated is based upon interpretation of the facts as we know them. The best example of this is the conflict between those who endorsed the Steady State universe, and those who endorse the Expanding Universe. Many of the observations taken to try to resolve the issue are ambiguous at best, and others are so esoteric as to be virtually unintelligible to a non-scientist. In this kind of situation you have to examine both sides and find the one which makes the most sense to you. For me, in this instance, the Expanding Universe theory makes the most sense. It is a simpler, more elegant theory, yet seems to fit the observable universe more readily, to my mind. That doesn't necessarily mean it's right. Evidence could be discovered which will toss that theory on the trash heap, along with so many others. But that's one of the beautiful aspects of science: we understand that the truth we proclaim is based on our current understanding, and is not necessarily the whole truth. And it's not necessarily the right truth, either. It's just the best we have at the moment.

As an aside, comments made by companioncube#3 and myself in other posts on this thread, mention Isaac Asimov, and his science essays. One which is most appropriate here (which I've just reread) is called "The Relativity of Wrong". The basic idea is that right and wrong are not absolute. Science may sometimes be wrong, but most of the time it is almost right. And each new discovery brings us that much closer to be absolutely right.

[denuseri]

wow an honest answer to the expermental faith question sir i applaud you Thorne.

and sorry btw i was baiting the room for a deccanistic geologist/ argeologist vs astonomy disscussion on dinosuar extinction as a classic example of why and how the popularized therory of one side has eroded true scienctific endeavors to find the truth about what really caused the dinosaurs to become extinct ,, which btw has happened numerous times throughout history, why ? because humans are still human, despite ourselves, wow i guess science has tmany of the same secular pitfalls as religion huh?

its a common tendency of most people to deny the connections between religion faith and what have you and science, (not the preformance of an experiment but the interpetation of the data), which is preciecly what everyone does, interpets the data around them, but to do so we must find consences and agree on terminology such as can we all agree the sky is for the most part blue?

and before we go galavanting off into just what the definition of faith is, mabey we should look at what human nature is or for that matter what is is

(sorry bad billy clinton joke) lol

i have faith that our scientists are trying to answer questions that have been attempeted to be answered by the philosophers before they came on the scene, as the philosophers attempeted to answer the questions proposed to be answered by the theologians that predated them and they the questions proposed by the mystics etc etc etc back to early cave guy gazing at the monolith in wonder (sorry arther c clark joke now)

remember early philosophers did attempt to answer the very questions of why what how we all came to be which is kinda what some scientists are all about,, math being the general language they use, where as philosophers tended to kling to words some of them like pathagoras did delve into numerology for example however and it was a good thing too, i actually kinda see philosophers as the bridge between science and faith, or religion or whatever yu wish to call it, that we still have all three is no wonder eaither, even though many may think atheisim to be purely scientific it is a belief like any other since we cant prove thier is no divinity (intellegent design or not)

i dont think any one really knows 100% weather ocum was right or not with his razor until they actually die, though isnt that what "faith" is all about?

or mabey having "faith" at least in a religious sence, is more about having "hope"

(and dont get me wrong i am speaking of the message of most religions not the poor way its many dogmas are practiced, of course that goes for science too, look at the atom bomb)

[companioncube#3]

Re: Science and Truth...

I might be getting a bit off the point here, but maybe not. All this talk about scientific "truths" makes me want to interject with another difference between science and religion/philosophy that I think is being overlooked. That is, science isn't really in the business of finding Truth with a capital T. Rather, science is in the business of building models. It isn't a trivial distinction.

It's perhaps clearest to me when I'm teaching the basics of quantum chemistry - and here I mean only the simplest of introductions with nearly no math - to high school students who have only ever thought of electrons as particles before, who were taught in elementary school that atoms looked like tiny solar systems, with the electrons whizzing around a stationary, sun-like nucleus. The brightest students tend to confront me when I tell them that they must now begin to treat the electrons as waves. "So everything we learned before was wrong?" they'll demand, annoyance and betrayal plain on their faces. "Why were we forced to memorize stuff that's wrong? And how do we know that what you're telling us now is right? Are we gonna go to college and be told that what you're telling us now is also wrong? Well, that sucks."

It's a legitimate sentiment from students who have, for years, been getting As in biology by memorizing the textbooks, As in physics by plugging numbers into formulas, and As in chemistry by performing some combination of those two, and all the while being told they're brilliant for being able to do it so masterfully. These are the students who have mastered the game, who want to be fed the information clearly so they can memorize it and spit it out on the test. It's a shame, because they're also the students who are capable of appreciating the material on a more meaningful level, but whom the system rewards with As and scholarships for their mindlessness.

/edu-rant

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that students' questions about how the particle-model of the atom is "wrong" betrays a misunderstanding of what science does. The particle model of the atom isn't "wrong." Better stated, it's a less sophisticated model. It didn't explain certain experimental results, so scientists found a more predictive mathematical construct to describe the election: a wave. So, then, I'm asked by my kids, "so an electron is a wave?" And then I'm forced to say well, not always. Sometimes, we still use the particle model. It all depends on the conditions of the experiment. And then, naturally, they go nuts on me. But which one is right!? Is the electron a particle or a wave? It can't be both! Both can't be right! What's the TRUTH! (read: what do I write down in my notes as the correct answer to a multiple choice question asking me what an electron is?)

And there's the misunderstanding again. Models aren't about truth. They're about predicting experimental results. If you want to talk truth, I tell them, treat your brain to a proper class in philosophy. An electron is neither a particle nor a wave; it's an electron. It's something so alien to us that we can't imagine what it is. But we do know how to describe its behaviour and that is good enough for science, if not for the inquiring mind of a tenth grader.

All this to illustrate how science and religion differ in their criteria for considering an idea "true." In science, we mean a good model that reliably predicts the results of experiments, usually if not always with the caveat that models are imperfect and in a constant state of refinement. Religion goes beyond that, laying claim to metaphysical truth, addressing lofty universals like goodness, justice, divinity, love. In my eyes, this makes science a far more humble enterprise, if not sometimes unsatisfying emotionally.

I suppose this is why I'm having a hard time entertaining a discussion which compares belief in science to belief in religion. Science is not to be believed the way religion is to be believed; I don't think the two even ask the same questions. The looseness of language causes confusion.

Any help in further clarifying this - if anyone out there understands what I'm trying to say (too little coffee tonight), would be very welcome.

[Kuskovian]

According to Oxford: (or at least thier dictionary)

Faith~ A complete trust or confidence in someone or something. A strong belief in a religion. A system of religious belief. Origin from the latin fides.

Science~ A systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. An organized body of knowledge on any subject. Origin from the latin scientia.

Fides in latin stands for trust, faith, confidence, relience etc etc.

Scientia in latin stands for knowledge, skill, expertise etc etc.

You need both as a human being. They are two sides of "our" coin. One leans to the heart, the other to the mind. Regardless of what your "faith" is in you do in fact have it.


A careful study of the history of religion and science will show one that they do in deed look for and claim to have the answers to many of the questions that have plauged humanity. (The who, what, why, where, hows, of it all.)

Both are very secular in the structure, yet use far different approaches to thier systems. Believe it or now both look internally as well as externally for thier information. If I am not inspired to make a hypotheisis how can I set up an experiment? If I am not able to see the wonders of existence and measure them how can I quantify what is observed and understand it?

Or mabey Darth Vader said it best. You shouldn't put "all" your faith in this technological monstrosity, it's power pales in comparisson to the power of the Force.

Or as Robert Oxton Bolton once said: " A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind."

[Thorne]

companioncube#3

Yes, I do understand, and I agree with you completely. In fact, that article I mentioned in my last post, Asimov's "The Relativity of Wrong", says almost the same thing you have said. Defining the electron as a particle isn't wrong, nor is defining it as a wave. But neither are exactly right, either.

And this is the object of science, to make certain that the answers we find today are a little more right than the answers we had yesterday. You seldom find this attitude in religion because dogma decrees that the answers you have today are the same as they've always been, and that they are 100% right. Even if they don't make sense.

[Kuskovian]

Sounds like you have found a very closed minded practice in a given religion Thorne.

And I do agree that many western religious fanatics are "my way or the highway types".
Even when thier own sects writtings specifically say otherwise.

Most religions look for universally applied imperatives, simular to Imanual Kant's aplications.

Like: "love thy nieghbor as thyself" or: "and it harm not others do as thou will"

Yet to dismiss "all" spiritual faiths out of course is an arrogant mistake that even Einstien refused to make.

[companioncube#3]

Hi Thorne,

I found the Asimov essay to which you referred online. It is certain that I will be reading more of his essays in the future. Thank you for bringing it to my attention; I'm very happy to have met you in this forum.

[DiablosPet]

Every human is borne free and atheist with full authority to use his rational faculty.

Society makes him slave and Theist and restricts him to use his rational faculty to the full potential.

Every man, who denies the brainwashings by the society remains free, rational and atheist.

Beautifully put. :cheerlead I'm an atheist. I refuse to be brainwashed into believing in anything. I have my own beliefs and will never follow a general mass. People are afraid of the unknown religion just gives them a sense of security about where life began and where/how it ends. Period. Agree with me or not. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and I respect people who believe in "God". All I know is that I am here to live my life how I choose, not to follow a belief that holds no evidence.

-DP

[Thorne]

Sounds like you have found a very closed minded practice in a given religion Thorne.
Perhaps you are right. I was raised Catholic, but turned away from it at an early age because it never made much sense to me. And my studies of history have shown me that religion (NOT faith) has done almost as much harm to mankind as politics.


And I do agree that many western religious fanatics are "my way or the highway types".
Even when thier own sects writtings specifically say otherwise.

Most religions look for universally applied imperatives, simular to Imanual Kant's aplications.

Like: "love thy nieghbor as thyself" or: "and it harm not others do as thou will"
Maybe, but again, history shows us that these concepts tend to apply only to other members of that religion. Those of a different religion seem to get much less consideration.


Yet to dismiss "all" spiritual faiths out of course is an arrogant mistake that even Einstien refused to make.
Again, don't confuse "Faith" with "Religion". At least in the context I am talking about, they are two entirely different entities. I do not dismiss people of faith, of any faith, out of hand. Everyone is free to believe what they wish, or not believe what they wish. I don't have any problems with believers (or non-believers).
My problem is with those who insist upon my believing the same way as they do. Who would persecute me (if they could) for not believing as they do. And it just amazes me that, in this day and age, there are still people out there who are ignorant enough to believe that they have all the answers. And a codified religion only perpetuates that problem, to my mind.

[Thorne]

Hi Thorne,

I found the Asimov essay to which you referred online. It is certain that I will be reading more of his essays in the future. Thank you for bringing it to my attention; I'm very happy to have met you in this forum.

You're quite welcome. Always happy to lead someone to the light!:)

And it's nice meeting you, too.

[Thorne]

Beautifully put. :cheerlead I'm an atheist. I refuse to be brainwashed into believing in anything. I have my own beliefs and will never follow a general mass. People are afraid of the unknown religion just gives them a sense of security about where life began and where/how it ends. Period. Agree with me or not. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and I respect people who believe in "God". All I know is that I am here to live my life how I choose, not to follow a belief that holds no evidence.

-DP

Just remember, preaching a hatred of religion is just as wrong as preaching for one. I have just as much problem understanding those militant atheists who would force everyone to give up religion, just because they don't believe. Filing a lawsuit against a town or city for putting up a Christian themed Christmas display is just as reprehensible to me as forcing someone to pray in school. From where I sit, some of these atheists have taken on the mantle of their own religion! Ironic, I suppose.

[denuseri]

thanku very much Thorne, we have been waiting for someone to say that to point out the irony.

we just wanted someone to acknowlege that not all religions expouse a totalitarian doctrine, and that some athiests seem to be just as militant or zealous as "belivers" in a given faith which is ironic yet typical of many "rejectionist" movements from the mainstream or conformist portions of society.

we also are not confussing "faith" with "religion", an early post clarified that the word faith has many meanings depending on context.

ulitimately no one belives anything they dont want to, alltough peer pressure is a detractable factor of any human social interation especially in organized practices of faith, there will allways remain the diversity of the individual, the freedom to choose for yourself, regaurdless of how you were raised, even the extremisum of the most vehmament christians demands that "god has given us the freedom of choice"

i belive the point my owner was making about Einstien (as well as many learned and respected peers of the scientific comunity) was that even he a very respected icon of "science" expressed a belief , a faith in the existance of "god" and the subsiqunt evolution of mankind the world etc to be a prossess of "design" as opposed to chance

in the end only we can decide what we belive as individuals, alone in the floatstream of existance or inextorably connected in someway?

paranormal reaserch into the realms of telepathy and remote viewing and or other supernatural realms are models explored even by our own governments currently and in the past that may give some light on such questions, despite the secptics more recent reaserch has shown there to be "something" happening that scientists are as of yet unable to explain

thier is a reason that many many people have throughout the history of mankind found and explained this "connection" that all life, all matter seems to have with one another, from the early mystics to the wisest of buddist monks on the moutian top and its not just some little phycological compulsion of sientience

mabey george lucas has it right? who am i to say, but to deny the possibility that it exists, that there is some entity, a god or godess or some other such force, even if its like the gaian model where we are all little parts of the great consiouness, the spiral of life as some native american cultures describe is tantamont to telling all of existance, the crowd, the refferee, the other players etc, to frack off while putting oneself in the penalty box, in a hockey game using infinite quarks for pucks

[Synfall]

Speaking as a solitary practitioner here- not believing in religion does not automatically make one an atheist.
Religion is a highly personal thing, and not everyone can find a comfortable mindframe within community efforts for how they percieve deity, or lack thereof, within the world.
One should also consider the stance of agnostics.
Agnostics being people who believe that there may be a higher being/s, but not interested in following an organized form of religion, as opposed to the atheist who, by definition, refuses, or are unable, to believe in the existence of a higher being or beings.

(Although I must admit, I am something of a convert to the Church of FSM. (http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/)) ;)

[Shwenn]

(Although I must admit, I am something of a convert to the Church of FSM. (http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/)) ;)

RAmen, brother.

[DarkPoet]

(Although I must admit, I am something of a convert to the Church of FSM. (http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/)) ;)

This religion realy appeals to me, but to convert, I'd have to let go of my deepest inner belief that we are all just the dream of a lonely white mouse, which has probably long ago been eaten by Schrödinger's cat.

Thnx for the link, YMMD :)

[Synfall]

This religion realy appeals to me, but to convert, I'd have to let go of my deepest inner belief that we are all just the dream of a lonely white mouse, which has probably long ago been eaten by Schrödinger's cat.

That is an interesting belief. Although I have to wonder-Does the mouse exist as part of the potentially still living cat or does it exist on it's own merits without taking the cat's digestive system into consideration?
And if it doesn't exist on its own merits within the cat, how much does the cat influence the events of our world?
And why did the cat chose to eat the mouse when it had the option of eating lasagna?

I will have to pray to his Noodliness for undestanding how to deal with your system of beliefs.
RAmen

[denuseri]

Looking in the box to see if the cat lives has me kinda worried the mouse will escape, oh look no worries thier is a hole in the box anyway, i wonder who put that there, the mouse perhaps? mabey god did to give us some light so we can see the cat?

[DiablosPet]

Just remember, preaching a hatred of religion is just as wrong as preaching for one. I have just as much problem understanding those militant atheists who would force everyone to give up religion, just because they don't believe. Filing a lawsuit against a town or city for putting up a Christian themed Christmas display is just as reprehensible to me as forcing someone to pray in school. From where I sit, some of these atheists have taken on the mantle of their own religion! Ironic, I suppose.


"there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere" - Baggini 2003, pp. 3–4

"The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

I had a very bad experience growing-up revolving around religion. This is the reason why I am Atheist:

I grew up in a tiny little farming town in Northern Alberta, Canada. This little town was home to 3 000 people, 11 000 including all the out-lying farms. Once holding the world record for having the most churches, you can probably guess how many people in this town we're NOT religious.
Growing up in the school system was shear torture. Kids can be so mean sometimes. It was a Public School System that ran very much like a Religious School.

Now, when I first started there in grade 5 it didn't bother me at all. I was not religious but just went through the day doing what I was told to and didn't complain. Did that for 3 years, had friends, good grades all that good stuff.

Grade 9 hit me like a brick wall. English class was my favorite class, and I always loved when we we're given an assignment to write about something of our choice. One day the class was given an assignment to write about a Religion of our choosing. This was the first time I was able to write about what I really felt. I spent 2 weeks writing my essay on Atheism. I received a zero mark. Then the teasing began with people constantly shoving ideas of Religion down my throat. After grade 9 I knew I would never let anyone influence my beliefs.

I respect any religion, I don't care who you look up to. To each his own.
I'm not trying to be a dick-head to anyone or anything like that. In fact I actually enjoy being proven wrong because I learn from it. My Mum has always said that whole "don't talk about religion with people" line, and I swear my Mum has never been wrong. *It makes me sick how right she always is*

I worry that this thread could potentially makes more enemies then friends. Then again only if we choose it.

Peace. Love.
-DP

[companioncube#3]

Thorne wrote:


I have just as much problem understanding those militant atheists who would force everyone to give up religion, just because they don't believe.

I am sympathetic to this position, but I think there is more to be said for the so-called "militant atheist" movement than is expressed above. Naturally it's meaningless to discuss the opinions of the so-called "militant atheists" or "new atheists," only because there is a diversity of opinions from a diversity of people all being labelled with the same name. But if we are talking about the most visible proponents of the new atheism, say, Richard Dawkins or his more obnoxious counterpart, PZ Myers (I spelled his name incorrectly in an earlier post), I'd have to say that their polemics are motivated by more than "just because they don't believe," and their objectives do not include forcing "everyone to give up religion."

I think their motivations are mostly political and, to a lesser but significant degree, philosophical. Dawkins and Myers, both being evolutionary biologists, are probably irritated most by the Intelligent Design proponents, whose attempts to force biology teachers to preach Christianity as science would be funny were it not for the fact that they have come close to succeeding. The movement of Evangelical fanaticism out of the megachurch and into the public square has threatened women's reproductive rights, denied our students the option of proper sex education, and crippled stem cell research. Now, we can have a fair discussion about these issues - it is not to say that the secular position is necessarily the right one (I believe it is) - but once religiously-motivated ideas become a matter of public policy, it's fair game for robust debate and vicious, irreverent criticism. Like, if you can't take the heat, get out of my bedroom, my doctor's office, my classroom & my lab.

Dawkins et al. are not interested in forcing religion out of the hearts and minds of the people. They are, however, intent on undoing the damage done by very bad men propelled into political prominence up by the god-fearing, unworldly and undereducated hoi polloi. The only way to do this is to convince people not to vote for something just because their priests tell them to. Now, I'm not sure they go about it in the right way; their PR skills are lacking - they're rude, insulting, dismissive, smug and sneering. But in the end, they're on the side of reason and liberty.

I hope this reads as a lukewarm defence of Dawkins and the rest. As I intimated earlier, they are not my favourite people, but it's only natural that in the age of The Dover Trials and "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," a few scientists who don't mind being shrill would rise out of academic obscurity to confront the Religious Right's well-funded propaganda machine. In this case, I don't think a stuttering milquetoast will do the job.

PS:

Hello to fellow Pastafarians! May His Noodliness bless you with the Might and Glory of his Massive Noodly Appendage!

[denuseri]

taking up against the fundamentalist crossection here in america is basically like taking on a brick wall, expesially since the judean christian right wing and liberal versions here (yes religion exists on both sides of the political arena in the states despite the medias attempt to personify it as a purely republican issue) have re-rallied behind thier religion secular views (i am talking about the anglo saxon american christians here that have become allmost militant seeming in the usa) of course that re-rallying is also a media driven thing for the most part, as it feeds on such controvesies, day to day life here in the states i raely see hear or talk about religion with people on the street, except on sundays when my mom bugs me to go to church with her despite her knowledge that i no longer share her faith (but hey she is old and it makes her happy when i do take her so i am in the church most sundays)

which i dont know if its just Lutherans or not, but at that church the people thier would be appalled to hear that so many people think so poorely of them, they are hardly militant there, (Lutherans as still blushing over pokeing thier finger in the catholics eye back in the 1500's very reserved folks and even that was done with a letter on a church door as opposed to in yur face) and most of them would say that god would be appalled at how so many in history have twisted the message that the lutherans believe he has given them

see the Lutherans are basically a shy lot and yu shouldnt see them pounding bibles on street corners its way to much like having sex with the lights on for them,

basically love thy neighbor as thyself is thier approach and quietly too, yu dont want to draw attention

[DarkPoet]

That is an interesting belief. Although I have to wonder-Does the mouse exist as part of the potentially still living cat or does it exist on it's own merits without taking the cat's digestive system into consideration?
And if it doesn't exist on its own merits within the cat, how much does the cat influence the events of our world?
And why did the cat chose to eat the mouse when it had the option of eating lasagna?

That is the big question, which even the high priestess Minnie of the Religion Of The Mouse Forever Living - or short "ROTFL" - couldn't answer yet. Some believe that the mouse may currently be both itself and the cat and have formed their own sect, the "Schrödinger's Indecisive Cat's Knights Congregation of Undecided Novices of Terra" (abbreviated "SICKCUNT").

[Thorne]

This religion realy appeals to me, but to convert, I'd have to let go of my deepest inner belief that we are all just the dream of a lonely white mouse, which has probably long ago been eaten by Schrödinger's cat.

Ah, but there's the rub! The mouse wasn't eaten, yet it was!

[denuseri]

LOL we have taken thread drift to a whole new level,

[Thorne]

LOL we have taken thread drift to a whole new level,

Maybe we have and maybe we haven't. Go ask the damned cat! Or the mouse. Or are they one and the same.

I have a headache.

[Shwenn]

Maybe we have and maybe we haven't. Go ask the damned cat! Or the mouse. Or are they one and the same.

I have a headache.

They are both one and the same AND different. Until we learn that they are one and the same. Or that they are different.

It's all true until you look in the box.

[Thorne]

They are both one and the same AND different. Until we learn that they are one and the same. Or that they are different.

It's all true until you look in the box.

But isn't the box just a metaphor for the cat? Or the rat? Or Thing 1 and Thing 2?

Somebody should have shot Schrödinger! Or maybe they did?

[Shwenn]

Somebody should have shot Schrödinger! Or maybe they did?

You don't have to convince me. I've actually had to solve the particle in the box. My only problem is that death by bullet would've been too quick.

I once met one of Bose's descendants at a party and we talked about that problem like two war veterans.

[Thorne]

My only problem is that death by bullet would've been too quick.

If you do it at the event horizon of a black hole it will take an eternity. That long enough for you?

[denuseri]

just trying to get close enough to the event horizion should be hard enough it would seem like forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever etc etc etc etc never fully reaching it but allways trying

perhaps that is how it is with existance, we dont realize we are here until we have been here a while (full on self awareness doesnt fully kick in till we are allmost walking, mabey later) is it possible we leave the same way?

mabey that perception is one reason the tibetian's use thier book of the dead to talk the soul of the loved one thru his journey into the afterlife, so one goes out peacefully to assume whatever place they have in the cosmos, even if its just "endless void"

[denuseri]

another way to look at it is, those that express faith may not know the cat is alive or dead, but they hope, they believe , they have faith that the cat lives, or has died (if exposed to the radioisotope) whatever yu surley get the point

[Thorne]

just trying to get close enough to the event horizion should be hard enough it would seem like forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever etc etc etc etc never fully reaching it but allways trying

perhaps that is how it is with existance, we dont realize we are here until we have been here a while (full on self awareness doesnt fully kick in till we are allmost walking, mabey later) is it possible we leave the same way?

mabey that perception is one reason the tibetian's use thier book of the dead to talk the soul of the loved one thru his journey into the afterlife, so one goes out peacefully to assume whatever place they have in the cosmos, even if its just "endless void"

Sorry, I can't buy into this kind of idea. You're born, you live, and you die. It's that simple, that brutal, and that's life.

[DarkPoet]

just trying to get close enough to the event horizion should be hard enough it would seem like forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever etc etc etc etc never fully reaching it but allways trying

Just like the runner who competes against the turtle, running ten times as fast, but the turtle has ten feet advantage and the runner's never going to overtake it. Why? In the time it takes the runner to make the ten feet, the turtle's already run another foot, and until the runner has made this foot, it's again a tenth of a foot ahead. The runner runs this thenth foot, but the turtle has already made another hundredth of a foot... - so we see, the runner can only come infinitely close to the turtle, but never overtake it ;)

(Please don't take this as a confession that Schrödinger's Cat may never even have caught the mouse!)

[Synfall]

Just like the runner who competes against the turtle, running ten times as fast, but the turtle has ten feet advantage and the runner's never going to overtake it. Why? In the time it takes the runner to make the ten feet, the turtle's already run another foot, and until the runner has made this foot, it's again a tenth of a foot ahead. The runner runs this thenth foot, but the turtle has already made another hundredth of a foot... - so we see, the runner can only come infinitely close to the turtle, but never overtake it

Unless the turtle gets hit by a car while it's crossing the road.

[Synfall]

Sorry, I can't buy into this kind of idea. You're born, you live, and you die. It's that simple, that brutal, and that's life.

I don't think it is that simple. With the death of the body, the energy that compelled the body still exists. Maybe there is no longer a conscious awareness of the energy, as there was when there was a form, but as energy can neither be created or destroyed your energy would still technically exist in the universe even after death.
It is arguable that the continued existence of your energy is an afterlife in and of itself even if it would be to your consciousness as an "endless void".
jmho

[Thorne]

Unless the turtle gets hit by a car while it's crossing the road.

And just why was the turtle crossing the road?

Something to do with Schrödinger's Chicken, no doubt.

[Thorne]

I don't think it is that simple. With the death of the body, the energy that compelled the body still exists. Maybe there is no longer a conscious awareness of the energy, as there was when there was a form, but as energy can neither be created or destroyed your energy would still technically exist in the universe even after death.
It is arguable that the continued existence of your energy is an afterlife in and of itself even if it would be to your consciousness as an "endless void".
jmho

That makes the assumption that consciousness is a function of energy and not simply a biochemical anomaly. And even if it is a function of energy, there is no way to show that it remains coherent after death, and not just random electromagnetic fluctuations.

As for your energy remaining in the universe after your death, the same can be said of your atoms, whether from the decay products of your body or even the waste products throughout your life. That doesn't mean that you go on, just that your atoms do. And they are, in general, recycled into other beings on into the future. So perhaps you can interpret that as a form of immortality, if you wish. The way I see it, we all have at least some atoms inside our bodies which at some point have passed through the gastro-intestinal tracts of innumerable other creatures throughout time.

In other words, we're all full of shit! ;)

[Shwenn]

I don't think it is that simple. With the death of the body, the energy that compelled the body still exists. Maybe there is no longer a conscious awareness of the energy, as there was when there was a form, but as energy can neither be created or destroyed your energy would still technically exist in the universe even after death.
It is arguable that the continued existence of your energy is an afterlife in and of itself even if it would be to your consciousness as an "endless void".
jmho

Okay, I find this a bit cloying.

The energy you are talking about was as subject to the first law of thermodynamics before you existed as it will be after. So, the 'afterlife' you describe here will be identical to your 'beforelife' and we can conclude that you have always existed.

But, when people speak of immortality in this way, they only do it from the point of birth on. There is this assumption of non-existence before birth which is inconsistent with the argument of continued existence after death.

See what I mean.

There was a sort of absense of me before I was born. Whatever you want to call that, that is the state I will be in after I die.

[awakening2]

Interesting, just wonder what I shall write to score a point! well if you believe and benefit humanity nay living beings - good for you, if you believe and do not do good, whats the use of the believe? Similarly, if you dont believe and do good for the nature - good on you, and if you don't well there are many like you and all can be said is that its sad...I feel the followers of the two Bible and Quran have done great works for humanity more then any others, especially those who like to be critics...so better leave them on their own, however better would be if we join them as well and match if not exceed their deeds to make our world so much more beautiful!

[awakening2]

I find Thorne's statement very thought provoking, "...consciousness is a function of energy and not simply a biochemical anomaly..." Further, " ...the same can be said of your atoms, whether from the decay products of your body..."! Synfall also adds an interesting statement above...even though I sense there seems to be little difference between the two...(sure not my judgement to make…!)

Nevertheless, I really liked the logical interpretation and rather find them a bit alarming/enlightening in a sense that it adds, indirectly some logical weight to the concept of life after death and the ultimate accountability and justice, professed by some religions, especially following holy Books. This lead to a simple calculation:
a) suppose there is no such reality of accountability (after death) so we need not worry of what ever we do here will make any difference to us, then those who thought so scored nearly 90-100 out of 100 as far as the enjoyment in this life is concerned (doing what pleased more). The score of those who believed in accountability in the life after death would be around 50 out of 100 as they did lot of self-restraints and self-control and enjoyed only things those were permitted in their beliefs.
b) Suppose there is accountability after death and these atoms and “conscious energy” are transformed back “for re-birth” as was done in the first case (our present life). Now those who did not believed in life after death and accountability, would lose every thing (being non-believer- no marks for the good deeds performed in ignorance, and punishment for the wrong doings done willingly). The believers, on the other hand, will be getting 90-100 percent marks. So it means if we believe we will not be a total loser in case there is no life after death, and if there is life after death – perfect winners. However, non-believers will be on two extreme ends, if there is no life after death and accountability, they are better off the rest, but on the contrary they would be the worst off (if there is accountability and life after death). Thus, playing safe would be to believe and do good deeds, so even in the worst case scenario, have some consolation (50%) then losing all?

Many thanks for the two for this philosophical discussion...though I wonder why I am trying to think about something that I know nothing about and the outcome of which I can only guess? Why not on the things which are in front of me and can give an outcome in my life-time, given my efforts in it...!

Still, Nice to be here...it does stimulate one's thinking!

[Thorne]

I wonder why I am trying to think about something that I know nothing about and the outcome of which I can only guess? Why not on the things which are in front of me and can give an outcome in my life-time, given my efforts in it...!

This is my point of view as well. We would all be far better off utilizing our energies to make this life better, for ourselves and our families, than in worrying about some potential afterlife. It's like the difference between using your hard earned income to buy groceries and pay the mortgage, insuring your safety, or spending it on lottery tickets for some intangible potential gain which may never come.

As for doing good deeds, I believe that most people, despite what they profess, refrain from doing "bad" things more out of fear of the consequences of the here and now rather than the consequences of some possibly mythical future.

We should respect the rights of others not because some god supposedly tells us to, but because that's how we want to be treated ourselves. We should obey the laws not because we fear for our souls, but because we fear prison and punishment, and because those laws give us all a sense of security which anarchy would not.

And if I'm wrong? If there is a God, and he is more concerned over my lack of faith than in the fact that I tried to be a good, honest person? Then to hell with him (and me)! I don't think I'd want to spend eternity with such a god.

[MMI]

I'm an atheist. And, insha'Allah, I always shall be.

[awakening2]

umm...! well Thorne...just a question, if you have two kids and both of them keep their room clean and tidy (if its not too much to ask from kids these days!), and one does it because it is his/her habbit and the other does it because it is both a habbit and also because s/he knows that you would like it to, who will become your favorite!?! then the two grow up and leave your home and you hear one day both of them being interviewed for their remarkable organizational abilities, one of them says I was born like that and the other says, I like doing it not only because I am an organized person but also because I know that it is what would make my parents happy/proud of me - and after all that they have done for me, I deem find it befitting on mybehalf to make them feel happy as well! Who's would you like more?!

And MMI...was just wondering if there is something wrong in your previous sentence..."I'm an atheist..." and then in the same sentence "... Insha'Allah.."?!

Hope we end up happily, whatever it is!

[lucy]

And MMI...was just wondering if there is something wrong in your previous sentence..."I'm an atheist..." and then in the same sentence "... Insha'Allah.."?!
I thought it was a joke, but i could be mistaken.


Hope we end up happily, whatever it is!
Agreed. But then again, as an ignostic atheist i can agree with almost anything since it doesn't matter anyway ;)

[Thorne]

umm...! well Thorne...just a question, if you have two kids and both of them keep their room clean and tidy (if its not too much to ask from kids these days!), and one does it because it is his/her habbit and the other does it because it is both a habbit and also because s/he knows that you would like it to, who will become your favorite!?! then the two grow up and leave your home and you hear one day both of them being interviewed for their remarkable organizational abilities, one of them says I was born like that and the other says, I like doing it not only because I am an organized person but also because I know that it is what would make my parents happy/proud of me - and after all that they have done for me, I deem find it befitting on mybehalf to make them feel happy as well! Who's would you like more?!

I'm not sure I get your point, here. I can't really see any difference between the two positions you are stating. For my part, I don't care why they keep their rooms clean, as long as they do. (And having raised two boys, I know that this is a forlorn hope.)

The point that I was making, though, is more akin to this analogy:
The mother of twin boys is raising them on her own, because the father is out of the picture for several years. The boys have never met their father, and only know what their mother tells them. And she tells them that if they don't behave, when their father comes home he will throw them out of the house.
Now, one of the boys, fearful of the potential punishment, toes the line and does what he's told. The other boy tells his mother that he doesn't have a father, so she can stop threatening him, but he behaves himself anyway, even though he's not afraid of some future punishment.
Which boy is more admirable? To my mind, the second boy is, simply because he does what's right without fear of being punished. And if it turns out that there really is a father? Which boy would he think is the better of the two?

And which would you choose?

[awakening2]

Smiles! I like your thoughts Thorne! Yes, I feel there are subtle differences - that of a half empty glass or a half full glass! You may do it for the fear of punishment or you do it out of the love and appreciation! I am 45, and still when I clean (and try to do it regularly!) my place, I cherish the feeling that if my mum was around, she would have felt proud of me! I learned my cooking skills and cleanliness from her. I do acknowledge her positive contributions from the time, when I was unable to express myself (just born) to the time where I reasoned unreasonably (young boy), till the time that the world's acknowledged universities and institutions acknowledged my little achievements. Many including my mum have played their role in my development. All these individuals and my mum don't need a part of my degrees or awards or the money I make, they just would like to hear from me that I do acknowledge/appreciate their positive role in my life - this will make them smile and feel satisfied if not proud.

I don't fear my mum for the fear of punishment, she is not more powerful then me, at least not now but, then yes, this is all the more reason to fear more, for I may lose her love and affection, if I disappoint her. My point is that fear also flows from losing a love of your loved one and to me it is more powerful then the fear of the punishment.

We all like to be acknowledged, I do, if I don't, based on my limited knowledge of psychology, I would not be a normal person. The boy who does it on his own and consider that to be only his own virtue denies the efforts of the parents who provided him that environment in which he learned, and of all those individuals who contributed in his personality development. The second child, give credit where it is due, even though he is also now doing on his own yet acknowledges the fact that many factor contributed - yes both the boys had options but one of them chose not only to learn and adopt the right traits for himself, but also to acknowledge from where they were coming for.

My point was that if I was to be in your shoes, I would have not tried to reject (or ridicule..."hell with...") the existence of the God (for do I really know? or is it that I do not still have the sufficient knowledge to make a judgement?) I rather would have played save saying, well I am not sure yet, nevertheless what I do good is because I feel good doing so, and if that is what the God, if exist, says so, well good for both of us – for me to know that there is God who believes like me in my goodness, and also good for the God who has someone like me!

Recently you said, "We should respect the rights of others ... because that's how we want to be treated ourselves.." well I accept and am with you on it, so why not respect for the ONE, so He, if there may have respect for us?!

[MMI]

All hail to the Omnipotent, so impotent; so unjust he punishes us for his own imperfections; so insecure, he threatens to damn us eternally for not singing his praises; so unforgiving, that only the blood sacrifice of his own son is acceptable penance; so dependable that thousands of martyrs have died because he would not save them.

So ungenerous that there is not one single provable act of goodness or kindness throughout the whole of history - whether history began 7,000 years ago or 13.5bn years ago - that can be attributed to him.

Should we treat each other that way: oppressively, selfishly, treacherously? Is that how to bring Heaven to Earth?

Ooops! Are my prejudices showing?

[Thorne]

Recently you said, "We should respect the rights of others ... because that's how we want to be treated ourselves.." well I accept and am with you on it, so why not respect for the ONE, so He, if there may have respect for us?!

I don't know if there is a God. As I've stated many times, in many places, I don't particularly care, either. What I do know is that, if there is a God, the probability is very high that he is absolutely nothing like what the priests try to tell us. My point in that last post is that I would not even consider worshipping a being as capricious and inflexible as the biblical God.

[awakening2]

I share the frustration of MMI and Thorne...it is coming out of sincere hearts, though just in a subtle different way. This universe is amazing...and human being the most in it...the only one who likes to claim s/he knows the best even though deep down knows that it is not true. Psychologists have developed innumerable experiments, if you wish to be part of them; you may end up questioning the very authenticity of reality. There was a time when for more then four years in my prime, I also questioned my faith. I researched and met many “experts” from different faiths. Eventually I found one... but did I hold on to it? No I lost my path...no I let myself lose it…

Let me narrate you a short experience, shared with one of my early mentors, in Tibet (1979) at a foothill we assembled, when an American tourist approached us with his guide. He was offered tea and he gladly accepted it. As he sipped he saw an approaching monk with two empty buckets in his hands. He asked the monk (through his guide) where he is coming from and where he is heading. The monk replied, from the top of the mountain we see behind him and going across the mountain we see ahead of him to collect water for his master and himself. “How long does it take you to do this?” asked the tourist, “from one dawn to another”, replied the monk. American said, “you are wasting your life why don’t you borrow our technology, lay a pipe line and a generator, and with a flick of a button you will get water up right there where you are”. Monk was surprised, and said he will not say that he (American) was a liar but he need to consult his master. The monk closed his eyes and after a while looking at the tourist said, "my master says you are right, but we do not need your technology, for with it will come by default the evils like greed, hate, and much more which will destroy our social fabric. We are better off without it this way the cost of your comforts are too high", and saying that the monk left. Finishing the tea the American asked us, was he (the monk) sane? He (American) was asked why he said so. “He did not use any wireless or any thing, how could he talked with his master up there?” was his question. None of us replied for he would have not understood as at that moment he had closed his reasoning windows (became defensive) and portrait a picture of someone who wants to tell others, he knows better – it would have been foolish to explain him any thing at that time which he had no knowledge about.

To me, Buddha was probably the only one apart from the prophets, in recent times who understood the nature’s forces and mechanism and how to control it. What can be done materially can also be done spiritually. My friends there in Tibet did not need heaters or air-conditions, or mobile gadgets, they could do without them and very well. If over a billion Muslim believe their Prophet travelled on Burrak many times faster then the speed of light, some day science will reach there too. If nearly three billion Christian and Muslims believe that Jesus cured people without any surgery with the wave of his hand, science will eventually be there (limited lazer surgeries are there!). If over 3 billion Jews, Christians and Muslims believe that Moses split the sea and walked through it, time will come that some sort of material mechanism will help do the same (in a way building dams are an example!)

I can keep going…but for whom? Let me finish here by saying that the creator has created every thing dependent. The food we eat comes from the efforts of so many that we cannot imagine (who planted the seed, what natural forces reacted (do you know about 350 worms interact to enrich 500 gram of soil at some places?), what human efforts got involved to produced, who cultivated, prepared, processed, packed exported to be eaten by ultimately whom?). A chain reaction…the injustice you talk about is brought upon by not one person, but by a chain of reaction of so many who contributed directly and indirectly in it. Till the entire chain commits to change we cannot bring end to this injustice. The creator has created a universe and set forces to play their role till what time, I do not know? But forces have their determined paths, they change only when they are forced, they have no capacity to change on their own, only human have. Yes, humans are the only one (I think) who have also the capacity to reach a level where they can readjust these forces changed by some of their ignorant fellow "genius" beings. How? It’s a long path and not a comfortable one; I see no prophet spending life in a 7 star hotels, did they? Many will recall some one crying on the cross uttering "Eliah Eliah, why have you left me alone?". These hardships are rewarded in the way I am still unable to comprehend...yes, I do not have the capacity!

Would you go today and tell Harvard or MIT or Stanford to issue you PhD without passing through their system and on top of it let you hold discussion with their post-doctorate research fellows or teach there and change their system? No, for you will be wasting their time - you do not have the capacity, you must abide by their rules and regulations first to eventually have the capcity to understand what you are saying…same here, if entire humanity chain does not unite to bring change, then alone you must pass through the process suggested by the prophets only then you will be successful in their way. Yes then for your limited earthy life you will be able to intervene and save some! For sure if you do you will be my hero!

The Creator is there, he does not need us to survive, we are insignificant in our present state in the whole universe. No matter how hard we wish the Creator to behave the way we want him to behave, HE has HIS own ways…the ways of the Creator not of humans…we have no capacity till we graduate and reach there, to understand, know and bring change. If we try and do without ‘graduation’, we may still be able to, but we will only make a fool of ourselves - in the words of the famous 16th century Indian Tribal Chief that he wrote to the Governor (I think of Seattle) “You ask me to sell our land to you? This is our mother, and we do not sell our mothers, you think you can bring change to nature in your own way and feel benefited, nay what you do to it, you do unto yourselves, you think you benefit nay you will suffer you just don't know it yet, I see the destruction coming, as you lose the sounds of our sister (breeze), the chirping of our cousin (sparrow), the flutter of a butterfly in your concrete cities….”

[MMI]

The diffference between Thorne and myself (I think - I have no authority to speak for him) is that he doesn't think there is a God, although he is not certain. I want there to be a god - a good god - the Christian god, perhaps. But I am sure he is not there.

Your post, I'm afraid, just will not resonate with someone who does not admit the existence of God - any god.

Concerning improving the quality of the monk's lifestyle, the monk was wrong - the tourist was right. But as the monk just wanted to follow his own established habits and traditions, maybe he was right in that way. There's nothing divine about the choice, either way.



God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.



William Cowper


What tosh! What utter piffle!

I have heard that Cowper often struggled with depression and doubt. One night he decided to commit suicide by drowning himself. He called a cab and told the driver to take him to the River Thames. However, thick fog came down and prevented them from finding the river (another version of the story has the driver getting lost deliberately). After driving around lost for a while, the cabby finally stopped and let Cowper out. To Cowper’s surprise, he found himself on his own doorstep: God had sent the fog to keep him from killing himself. Even in our blackest moments, God watches over us.

Do you believe that? Or do you think that, being unable to reach the Thames in that weather, the cabby thought the best thing to do was to return his passenger to the point where he picked him up? Or will you now tell me that, even if the cabby did choose to do that, it must have been God who inspired him? Where does free will feature now?

"Blind unbelief is sure to err..." Is my unbelief blind? It seems to me more likely that it is blind faith that is bound to be wrong.

[Thorne]

The diffference between Thorne and myself (I think - I have no authority to speak for him) is that he doesn't think there is a God, although he is not certain. I want there to be a god - a good god - the Christian god, perhaps. But I am sure he is not there.

That's a fair statement of what I feel. I am not certain, as no one can be certain, that there is not a God, Christian or otherwise. One cannot prove a negative, so I cannot claim that God definitely does not exist.

You say you want there to be a god, while I say that I don't need a god. And God certainly would not need me!


The Creator is there, he does not need us to survive, we are insignificant in our present state in the whole universe. No matter how hard we wish the Creator to behave the way we want him to behave, HE has HIS own ways…the ways of the Creator not of humans.

This is closer to my feelings regarding any potential God. If he's out there, this little ball of dirt and water is only an infinitesimal portion of his creation. It is only man's innate need to believe himself greater than he is that allows him to postulate a God who's greatest desire is to see each of us join him in heaven.

I have no quarrel with those who have faith, regardless of their beliefs. They are as entitled to their belief as I am entitled to my disbelief. My only problem (well, with regard to this topic, anyway) is with those who would try to force their beliefs upon others, sometimes violently, using their God as justification. These are the true demons in our world. And all should fight against them.

[MMI]

You say you want there to be a god, while I say that I don't need a god. And God certainly would not need me!


Good point: Christians need their God, and Jehovah needs them.

As for me, wanting is not the same thing as neeeding. As I have rejected the notion, I clearly don't need a god. I take credit for my own achievements and accept the blame for my own faults. I don't need anyone to thank or to blame, and I am no better or wose than other god-fearing people.


(Q. Why are people with faith said to begod-fearing when they worship a god of love?)

But it would be nice if there were a kind and benevolent deity out there really looking after our interests.

[jezabel]

I have no quarrel with those who have faith, regardless of their beliefs. They are as entitled to their belief as I am entitled to my disbelief. My only problem (well, with regard to this topic, anyway) is with those who would try to force their beliefs upon others, sometimes violently, using their God as justification. These are the true demons in our world. And all should fight against them.

I have to agree with you on this point, that these people who profess to be representing 'their' God should be stopped.

But, and this is the crux, they aren't doing it for the glory of God, theyre doing it from a point of view spurred on by others who want the glory for themselves.

Im a Christian, I believe there is a God...ok shoot me down !!!!!!

I dont have proof that God exists, but then again I dont need it....I have faith .... and thats all I need. My God is a merciful God, who loves us all whether you believe in Him or not....dont worry people, He believes in you lol.

ok, im finished, but no doubt i'll have vitriol thrown at me now, but to be honest, i dont care...im confident in my beliefs and thats all that matters to me

jez xxx

[Thorne]

I have to agree with you on this point, that these people who profess to be representing 'their' God should be stopped.

But, and this is the crux, they aren't doing it for the glory of God, theyre doing it from a point of view spurred on by others who want the glory for themselves.
Either that, or they want the control that being the sole interpreter of God's will can bring them. Either way, I don't buy it.


Im a Christian, I believe there is a God...ok shoot me down !!!!!!

I dont have proof that God exists, but then again I dont need it....I have faith .... and thats all I need. My God is a merciful God, who loves us all whether you believe in Him or not....dont worry people, He believes in you lol.

ok, im finished, but no doubt i'll have vitriol thrown at me now, but to be honest, i dont care...im confident in my beliefs and thats all that matters to me

jez xxx
There's nothing to shoot down! You have your beliefs, and I can respect that. You don't have to prove that God exists, you only have to believe it. And even if I wanted to go through the effort, there's no way to prove that God does not exist.

So no vitriol from here. I'll let those "true" believers toss that around. All in the name of God, of course.

[Thorne]

(Q. Why are people with faith said to begod-fearing when they worship a god of love?)

But it would be nice if there were a kind and benevolent deity out there really looking after our interests.

They are God-fearing because Jehovah, as depicted in the Old Testament, is a capricious SOB, capable of inflicting horrid punishments on those who stray from his path.

As for a "kind and benevolent" deity: I suppose that would imply that there would also have to be a nasty and evil deity as well, since a kind deity wouldn't allow the kinds of things which happen every day in this world.

[Ultraprene]

Absurd beliefs, preposterous utterances, obnoxious behavior, and destructive acts are just that, and deserve no free pass just because they are derived from religion.

[angela_shy]

i'm more a non-theist than an atheist (doesn't believe there is a god as opposed to not believing in god).

if folk take comfort from religion, i tolerate their choice, and don't seek to hurt them by criticising the thought structures that bring them peace.

i attend church, read at the church, and embrace the involvement of a church scool in my daughter's life, because as a child i enjoyed the songs, structure, sense of security in knowing a framework defined my world. i will encourage her to ask questions and be critical, but not to the extent of indoctrination with my non-theist views. if she gets to that point of being a non-theist, i hope that will be through contemplation. meanwhile i tolerate her prayers and religious songs and Nativity Story, etc! it's a small price to pay for a secure little one.

and in fact i enjoy the sense of belonging i get now from attending church!

[Belgarold]

Angela,

I think you have found what (I believe) religion is all about. I think it is about that comfort, family, etc. And it is the way to help us through and teach us about life and death and morals.

I think that is why I have, though, my problems with those religions that seem so self-conscious about their own religion that they have to have me belief exactly as I do.

And get involved in political discourse to try to make it so.

[leo9]

b) Suppose there is accountability after death and these atoms and “conscious energy” are transformed back “for re-birth” as was done in the first case (our present life). Now those who did not believed in life after death and accountability, would lose every thing (being non-believer- no marks for the good deeds performed in ignorance, and punishment for the wrong doings done willingly). The believers, on the other hand, will be getting 90-100 percent marks. So it means if we believe we will not be a total loser in case there is no life after death, and if there is life after death – perfect winners. However, non-believers will be on two extreme ends, if there is no life after death and accountability, they are better off the rest, but on the contrary they would be the worst off (if there is accountability and life after death). Thus, playing safe would be to believe and do good deeds, so even in the worst case scenario, have some consolation (50%) then losing all?

The trouble with Pascal's Wager (as it's historically called) is that it only works if you assume (a) that there is, or isn't, only one God, and (b) that He/She/Whatever is sufficiently egocentric and brutal to damn people just for not praying to Him/Her/FlyingSpaghettiMonster, regardless of their other virtues.

As a polytheist I have trouble with premise (a). I don't have any trouble accepting that the God of the Mosaic faiths exists, as one of the many aspects of the Allfather, but I personally prefer to give my worship to the Goddess. But even within the limits of the Mosaic faiths, it won't do you any good to believe in Jaweh of the Torah if it turns out that Allah was in charge all along. Or vice versa.

And premise (b), as defined by the First Commandment, only really applies within the Mosaic faiths. Most other religions accept, outside of their primitive backwoods factions, that the gods will reward you for living a virtuous life whether or not you pray in their particular name or none at all.

[Ultraprene]

Before expounding theories about "energy" please go to the library and read a freshman physics book. Yes, when you die the chemical energy of your body is conserved in a First Law sense, just as is the energy in a lump of coal, but who cares, except to the worms or scavengers that eat your corpse.

[MMI]

What's the difference between a god and a goddess? Do the gods really have sex? (Do other gods bang on the walls if they make too much noise?)

Why is it important to worship the female rather than the male, especially if they are neither? What makes the mother goddess superior to the father creator?

I know all about Zeus's frolics with earthly maidens and nymphs, but I think he'd shag anything with a hole: "Greek love" and all that kind of stuff. And he's not real anyway.

Can gods be real? Does reality go beyond the natural?

[denuseri]

In the words of Stewart Chase:


"For those who believe no proof is nessesary, for those who do not no proof is possible."

[Thorne]

In the words of Stewart Chase:


"For those who believe no proof is nessesary, for those who do not no proof is possible."

I don't know if I'd go that far! If God drops enough miracles on my head I'd have to say that was pretty good evidence.

Or I'd have to get a stronger umbrella.

[leo9]

Before expounding theories about "energy" please go to the library and read a freshman physics book. Yes, when you die the chemical energy of your body is conserved in a First Law sense, just as is the energy in a lump of coal, but who cares, except to the worms or scavengers that eat your corpse.

This is not the first time I've seen the Law of Conservation of Energy misinterpeted to justify the immortality of the soul. The confusion is between energy and information (structure). The difference between a living body and a lump of meat is not the energy but the structure, the ordering on the molecular level, and specifically the information contained in the structure of the brain. Energy is conserved, but information can be destroyed effortlessly, as anyone who has lost a vital file knows all too well.

It's like the old puzzler "where does the flame go when the candle goes out?" A flame is an ordered structure of energy, maintained by a constant flow of energy through it: when the flow stops, the structure collapses and there is no flame. Ipsum est for living beings.

[wmrs2]

No! There are no real atheist. Anyone who believes in absolute truth is not an atheist. Without absolute truth there are no premises for thinking, which means there is no logic which always depends on premises. An atheist by definition is a person who believes in no premises and can not think. None of us are like that. Get over it, thinking is what makes you human and in the image of God, like it or not.

[FirstBorn]

I was raised atheist and have for a while had a fling with the old religion of scandinavia. Never really past an agnostic point of wiev but still good fun and educational as for historic insight.

I do not deny absolute truth rather its definition. In all my observations dropped items fall, that makes it emprically true within my limited experience. Most will agree but its not an absolute truth, or so pictures from space stations will have me belive. Those again may just be propaganda and lies and so what. I can live with an X in the equation without filling in a made up entity as explanation.

Should there be a god and should he (obviusly HE im made in his image and im male) My observations indicate that he's kinda small minded and judgemental tending to pull pranks without considering consequenses (just like me). So im pretty much in for a bit of punishment for being him/me... No matter really ill demand trial by combat according to solid cristian tradition. Prolly get my ass kicked but itll take a while, the soul being immortal and all that.

[MMI]

No! There are no real atheist. Anyone who believes in absolute truth is not an atheist. Without absolute truth there are no premises for thinking, which means there is no logic which always depends on premises. An atheist by definition is a person who believes in no premises and can not think. None of us are like that. Get over it, thinking is what makes you human and in the image of God, like it or not.

This looks like drivel to me. I don't believe in god, and I deny the existence of any god.

I can think.

And that's the truth!

[leo9]

Anyone who believes in absolute truth is not an atheist.
It's not necessary to believe in a god to believe in absolute truth. There are other philosophical bases for such a position.

Without absolute truth there are no premises for thinking, which means there is no logic which always depends on premises.
Wrong. Plenty of philosophies have been constructed on the basis of conditional or locally valid premises. More importantly, that's the way real people really think most of the time: nobody waits to determine the absolute truth of the weather forecast before deciding to wear a coat. One of the ways humans can still beat computers is that we can take decisions based on uncertain or incomplete data, which hangs up brains based on pure logic.

Get over it, thinking is what makes you human and in the image of God, like it or not.
And your evidence for the nature of god is what?

[Wiscoman]

No! There are no real atheist. Anyone who believes in absolute truth is not an atheist. Without absolute truth there are no premises for thinking, which means there is no logic which always depends on premises. An atheist by definition is a person who believes in no premises and can not think. None of us are like that. Get over it, thinking is what makes you human and in the image of God, like it or not.

I know this is an old post, but I've just got to say this makes no damned sense at all.

[EDQ]

there is a derferance between "fath" and "religon"

[FirstBorn]

No! There are no real atheist. Anyone who believes in absolute truth is not an atheist. Without absolute truth there are no premises for thinking, which means there is no logic which always depends on premises. An atheist by definition is a person who believes in no premises and can not think. None of us are like that. Get over it, thinking is what makes you human and in the image of God, like it or not.

Seems the sport of the day taking a proper swing at this statement. Ill really try not to because i can tell someone is pretty adament about it.

"There are no real atheist" Theist being people "with a god" thus atheists being people without a god. You could state the one cannot be defined by missing a feature (ie god) and thus cant be atheist. Thats a semantic argument thou, based merely on theist being the norm.

"Anyone who belives in absolute truth" This may make sense as an argument if you belive you have the absolute truth. Beliving however contradicts the wery concept of absolute truth. Simply because if something was absolutely true noone could possibly dispute it. "Faith" or "belief" implies that you made a more or less educated guess along the way, so by definition you dont know whatever truth you belive. (pretty much your own statement on atheism comming back to haunt you)

"Without absolute truth there are no premises for thinking" Id say the excact opposite. Given the knowledge of what is absolutely true, thinking (that is considering things from more than one angle) would meen defying your knowledge of a true angle. Should said truth be religius in nature, thinking would be blasphemy.

"Get over it, thinking is what makes you human and in the image of God, like it or not" Now i may have misread my bible more specifically the book of genesis. Man may have been created in the image of god atleas according to your source. However man lost his innocence with that whole apple deal. General consensus in cristian society states that if your not thinking (or not thinking right) your innocent. Thats why the court will let you go if you succesfully plea insanity.
Thus thinking wasnt part of the creation, but rather something we stole and got punished for stealing.

This whole mess could lead to the idea that thinking is against god. That infact accepting whatever truth you found and never applying thought or motive to anything is the only way to fly.
However you could read the whole getting kicked out of paradise only to come back once your good enuff. As an incentive for learning everything about gods creation in order to please god.
That would make you a scientist, being a scientist again meens you have to question your basic theory. In this case the belief in absolute truth and god.

[SadisticNature]

Dawkins likes to present the idea that scientists question absolutely everything but this is not entirely true. Science, unlike mathematics is built upon a set of unquestionable axioms that constitute the scientific methods.

Most notable of these is empiricism, namely the belief that you can identify all the relevant conditions to an experiment and if you change an irrelevant variable (typically time or location), you can conduct the same experiment with the same results. This presupposes a divine entity has no control over the outcome of your experiments so in a certain sense you have axiomatized away god at least in the sense of a divine entity that intervenes in the world.

Personally I'm an agnostic, I see no good evidence for their being a god. I don't believe you can discover the nature of the universe without working from basic axioms however, and you do have to believe in those axioms in order to get started. If you aren't an empiricist, and don't believe in the scientific method you will not be able to do good science.

Similarly, If you don't accept basic axioms like the value of human life and that human beings have basic inalienable rights in a theory of ethics, your theory of ethics will allow all kinds of atrocities. The common argument that religion makes where accepting certain basic ethical principles implies belief in god is as deeply erroneous. Ethics is not the sole domain of the religion even though religion has influenced the code of ethics and morality throughout history. The vast majority of agnostics and atheists are moral people, and morality is certainly not the exclusive domain of the religious.

In general I find this topic is often way too hostile to be productive.

[SadisticNature]

When I say that the axioms are unlike mathematics I mean that they are non-intuitive.

The axioms of the real numbers are rather believable and you have to be willing to accept them in order to have addition or multiplication at all, the axioms of required for the scientific method have been debated for centuries by philosophers and are still not generally accepted as fact.

For examples see:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_number
or

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarski%27s_axiomatization_of_the_reals

[Thorne]

Most notable of these is empiricism, namely the belief that you can identify all the relevant conditions to an experiment and if you change an irrelevant variable (typically time or location), you can conduct the same experiment with the same results. This presupposes a divine entity has no control over the outcome of your experiments so in a certain sense you have axiomatized away god at least in the sense of a divine entity that intervenes in the world.

But this is an absolute necessity in any experiment or study of science. If you presuppose that an entity (ANY entity) can control or alter the outcome of your experiment, what's the point of doing it? The result is meaningless. You can never be sure of any outcome. It's only by assuming that there is NO such entity that the experiment has any meaning.

[FirstBorn]

Funny thing about the seeing an atom argument. I wrote it off as just grasping for straws when i first read the thread. But then encountered it again IRL from pesky doorbell people, usually ill have the common sense to send such people away before they gain momentum, but i was in the mude for a bit of BS so i gave them 5 minutes.

Stupid atom argument comes up.. Well to the best of my rather simple understanding of science the basic principal is hypothesis->theory->law.

That is you think of some idea, "like dropped items fall" thatd be your hypothesis. So you go test that in every way you can think of and others agree with your results. You now promote your hypothesis to a theory... Should you manage to prove that your theory and its mathematics work in every possible scenario you get to call it a law (ie law of gravity).

Now theres no such thing as the atomic LAW. Theres an atomic theory and it does offer models and guidelines as to how chemicals behave. Thus its just a general rule of how atoms and chemicals will most likely act. Models again being a visual representation made entirely to explain things. I dont have to know if atoms exists or if they look like the planet/core model or the goofy bubbely iso models. All i got is a general explanation that just so happens to be more accurate than religius writing.

Pretty much every single religius law (barely hypothesis by science standards) you can prove wrong or inaccurate in your backyard. But some of the more esotheric ideas such as the soul, heaven and hell. Well we will see about those once wer dead. Given the general inaccuracy of religius writing im kinda assuming therell be a surprise for everyone. Prolly just some crappy ingame graphics and the names of the dev team thou.

[SadisticNature]

My point isn't that its not necessary. My point is that Dawkins common arguments against god reduce to:

Assume there is no god (as per assuming the Scientific Method)
Therefore there is no god.

So aren't actually strong arguments against the existence of god.

[FirstBorn]

So aren't actually strong arguments against the existence of god.
Other than the fact that the devine entity insists on not showing up for lab tests.

Now id say assuming the scientific method by itself does not exclude the excistence of a god. But the room where gods could be hiding is shrinking as more and more of the natural world is explained and formulated by science.

Should science eventually bump into some entity fitting the description of a god it would obviusly be recognised as such. But at the moment god is a hypothesis with no experiments defiantely proving or denying existance.

Religius texts however (as far as im informed) have all been proven wrong. That does not finally prove that there is no god, it just says that no human is able to explain the nature and wishes of such an entity.

[Thorne]

Assume there is no god (as per assuming the Scientific Method)
Therefore there is no god.
No, the way it actually works is:
1. Assume there are no gods.
2. Do our models and theories about the working of the universe still apply?
3. Yes, they do.
4. Then there probably are no gods.
5. Is there any evidence to show that there are gods?
6. No verifiable evidence at all. Only wishful thinking and anecdotes.
7. Then, to the best of our knowledge, there are no gods.


So aren't actually strong arguments against the existence of god.
We don't need any arguments against the existence of gods, any more than we need arguments against the existence of fairies, or leprechauns, or golems, or any other such superstitious claptrap. The point is that there is no credible evidence that gods exist. It's not up to science to prove that gods don't exist: it's up to believers to prove that they do, in a testable manner.

[SadisticNature]

If your definition of truth is scientific truth then in order to prove god exists you would likely have to do a series of experiments that verify the presence of god. My definition of truth is scientific truth and on that basis I don't believe in god. However, this is still a matter of premises, you have assumed that the only form of truth is scientific truth, by which you have already asserted the non-existence of god through experimental invariance or other similar properties that postulate results don't happen through miracles or divine intervention.

As for the other point about accumulating evidence based on god not interfering, this is also problematic. You have already assumed a theory which requires the non-existence of god to set up an empirical framework in which experimental results can discover general laws about the universe. Any experiment within this framework cannot then provide evidence for the non-existence of god as it is already assumed.

[FirstBorn]

My definition of truth is scientific truth and on that basis I don't believe in god.
Truth by scientific standards have nothing to do with belief. Should a deity show up in testing idt be a fact thus eliminating the need for beliving in it.

Since no deity has cared enuff to show up as of yet, nobody knows of its existance and any argument for beliving in it is looking rather dodgy. But not definately proven right or wrong.

So if someone set up a god measuring experiment and was able to prove beond dispute that the result would be final and correct. Whatever result came out would have to be the fact wed all have to accept from then on.

Science doesnt work that way thou. When making an experiment you go by whatever you have handy at the moment and work on your current hypothesis. Proving a scientific theory or law wrong in whatever specific case your working, is just good as proving it right.

That is you may with contemporary equipment set out to measure gods non existence (if thats the theory you decide). But if the experiment is supposed to have any merit atall. Any unexpected result would then prove your first assumption about god wrong.

Beliving in god or intelligent life on other planets (any planet including earth in my case) Is well good for the beliver. But without any evidence thats all it is.

Soon as SETI picks up some alien x-factor program, or a deity decides to show up and set the facts straight. Science FACT will get in line and give it the thumbs up.

Belief however is still pointless.

[Thorne]

you have assumed that the only form of truth is scientific truth, by which you have already asserted the non-existence of god through experimental invariance or other similar properties that postulate results don't happen through miracles or divine intervention.
I assert (not assume) that there is only one truth. Something is either true or it is not. It is the purpose of science to ferret out that truth, and to inform us of the rules under which that truth applies. For example, pure water will boil at 100ºC and freeze at 0ºC (the temperature scale being a construct of human measurement, not of the universe itself) under standardized conditions. If you change the conditions you change the temperatures. Science tells us why this happens, and how it happens, and lets us calculate the new temperatures. And science shows that results don't happen through miracles or divine intervention.


As for the other point about accumulating evidence based on god not interfering, this is also problematic. You have already assumed a theory which requires the non-existence of god to set up an empirical framework in which experimental results can discover general laws about the universe. Any experiment within this framework cannot then provide evidence for the non-existence of god as it is already assumed.
That's not true! All the gods have to do is perform a miracle, something which defies the framework of natural laws. Cure all the children born with AIDS; regrow an amputated limb; make the water in our experiment freeze at 20ºC without altering the standard conditions. These things should be child's play for a being that can create the whole universe!

But regardless, the "truth" is that science, or anything else, cannot prove that gods do not exist. All we can show is that, except for that brief period of time at the very beginning of the universe, everything in the universe can be explained without having to resort to divine intervention. So if there are gods, they are irrelevant.

[SadisticNature]

How do you know that Water isn't supposed to boil at 90 degrees and every time god stops it from boiling till it gets to 100. This seems pretty unreasonable but its not provably false, and its certainly not experimentally verifiable. So here is an example of something that could be true if a divine being were to exist that could not be shown by science. This also covers the non-interference problem, as if some divine being interferes in 100% of the experiments scientific truth could be entirely wrong.

As for truth, type matters. If you go with a radical doubt approach, its difficult to know much more than your own existence, because you can't prove that you aren't being deceived about the world. You can't even prove that people other than you exist. This is covered extensively in Philosophy, largely coming from the work of Descartes, but revisited by others. Other, more rational approaches start from different axioms and derive different results. In particular, the scientific method itself requires certain axioms.

Furthermore, no one has proven anything beyond a reasonable doubt in science, new experiments change and expand on previous laws. Even something as basic as gravity could behave radically differently from what was previously thought for something as yet untested. For instance, the gravity between two objects whose relative velocity is greater than the speed of light. For all we know the theory of gravity might be a tiny special case of the general picture. No experiment has proven it to be the be all and end all, just like no "god measuring" experiment would have a final word.

As for the 7 step argument Thorne postulates, step 4/5/6/7 is invalid as you have already assumed no gods, and consistency of one assumption does not imply the inconsistency of another.

1. Assume there are gods.
2. Do our models and theories of the universe still apply?
3. Yes, they do.
4. Then there probably are gods.
5. Is there evidence for gods?
6. Gods exist by assumption 1 so in this theory absolutely.
7. Then to the best of our knowledge there are gods.

If one of these theories was inconsistent or created problems it would be easy to reject it, but both are valid so someone needs to devise an experiment to show one or the other to be incorrect before outright rejecting either. In other words, neither "God exists." nor "God does not exist." is a statement of science, much like neither "The flying spaghetti monster exists." not "The flying spaghetti monster does not exist." is a statement of science. When we reject these things as implausible we aren't using scientific evidence we are making hypotheses from the entirety of our entire life experience about the plausibility of something we can't verify.

If I believe P is not equal to NP, I'm not asserting that computer science shows P is not equal to NP, I'm expressing a belief about an unproven conjecture. The fact that no one has demonstrated an algorithm for an NP-hard problem in polynomial time, is not enough to reject P = NP, even if an arbitrary large time window is used, a proof is still required.

[Thorne]

How do you know that Water isn't supposed to boil at 90 degrees and every time god stops it from boiling till it gets to 100.
Because we (mankind) have developed the Celsius scale of temperature using the boiling and freezing points of water under standardized conditions. So any god who wishes to fuck with us can simply cause the water to boil at any random temperature while maintaining those standard conditions, thereby negating our own science. Simple enough, isn't it?


As for truth, type matters. If you go with a radical doubt approach, its difficult to know much more than your own existence, because you can't prove that you aren't being deceived about the world. You can't even prove that people other than you exist. This is covered extensively in Philosophy, largely coming from the work of Descartes, but revisited by others. Other, more rational approaches start from different axioms and derive different results. In particular, the scientific method itself requires certain axioms.
I'm not going to debate philosophy. I have no understanding of it, and no taste for it. To me, it's a jumble of nonsensical excuses for believing whatever one wishes to believe.


Furthermore, no one has proven anything beyond a reasonable doubt in science, new experiments change and expand on previous laws. Even something as basic as gravity could behave radically differently from what was previously thought for something as yet untested.
I have never denied this. Science develops theories, which are basically models of the universe as we know it! If the model fails, the theory is wrong and must be either corrected or discarded. New devices, new technologies, new information, all help to improve the focus, to sharpen the spear point of science, to more accurately explain the real world around us. No reputable scientist would claim that he knows everything, or that we've explained anything absolutely. All we can say is that our models are as accurate as we can make them at this time.


As for the 7 step argument Thorne postulates, step 4/5/6/7 is invalid as you have already assumed no gods, and consistency of one assumption does not imply the inconsistency of another.

1. Assume there are gods.
2. Do our models and theories of the universe still apply?
3. Yes, they do.
4. Then there probably are gods.
5. Is there evidence for gods?
6. Gods exist by assumption 1 so in this theory absolutely.
7. Then to the best of our knowledge there are gods.
I disagree absolutely! Statement 6, above, is just plain wrong. The assumption of gods does not constitute evidence of gods. It's about as silly as claiming that we know the Bible is the "True Word of God" because the Bible tells us it's the "True Word of God!"

I would reword statement 6 to say, "No, there is no such evidence." Then statement 7 must become, "Then there may not be any gods. Our assumption at #1 may be wrong. Let's assume there are no gods and see where that takes us."

In short, if there is no evidence that gods exist, and no difference between a universe with gods and a universe without them, then why bother with them? They are, if they exist at all, irrelevant! They make no difference at all.

[FirstBorn]

1. Assume there are gods.
2. Do our models and theories of the universe still apply?
3. Yes, they do, in absolute indifference to our assumption 1.
4. Then we cant tell if there are gods or not.
5. No evidence supports the existence of gods.
6. We belived in god back at 1 but nothing supports that assumption.
7. There is no devine influence, possibly because theres no god.

[SadisticNature]

Up to 4 your argument makes sense. However once you have asserted by assumption an axiom is true, you can either show it false by contradiction, or you have a model of the universe in which its true, so within that model 5 is certainly wrong. 6 is true, however the same argument can be made about assuming gods don't exist.

7. is a reach that doesn't follow from 1 to 6 at all. It isn't even provably true, as how would you identify divine influence if it were happening in 100% of experiments.

As for the temperature scale:

My point is the actual temperature we identify as 100 celcius may in fact be different from the true temperature at which water boils if some divine entity were causing the true laws of nature to be violated in all instances. In this case we would discover false laws based on the violations.


As for philosophy if you choose not to debate it that's fine, but truth has long been consider in the realm of philosophy by both mathematicians and scientists. Scientists discover truth about the physical world, these aren't the only types of truth.

You continue to misunderstand point 6.

My point is consider two models of the universe.

Model A is the model you gave before where the assumption is that no gods exists.

Model B is the model where god exists by assumption.

Neither model is inconsistent, so you cannot rule out either model as a state of the universe. The only way in which an assumption can prove anything about itself is a proof of falsity by contradiction.

In Model A god does not exist is a true statement by assumption, this isn't evidence however because in Model B god exists is a true statement also by assumption. If you wanted to show god does not exist, you'd have to show that model A is consistent, while model B is not.

Model A provides evidence for god not existing as within Model A the statement god does not exist is true. Model B provides evidence for god existing as within Model B the statement god exists is true. None of this evidence is useful however as it is all circular reasoning and as neither of these models is consistent assuming a statement doesn't result in its proof.

Con (AoS) -> Con (AoS + 'God does not exist')
Con (AoS) -> not Con (AoS + 'God does exist')

would say that if one assumes the axioms of science are correct then one is forced to conclude god does not exist. This means any argument for the existence of god would have to argue the scientific method was wrong. However these statements have not been shown and from a logical standpoint are not derivable unless there are axioms of science that imply statements about god.

If you propose to advance a rigorous argument I suggest you use Models properly. If you'd like I could suggest a formal logic text or a model theory book, I've studied both.

[SadisticNature]

The Ancient Greeks have no verifiable evidence of gravity, and thus should conclude gravity does not exist. Of course this is a false conclusion.

Absence of verifiable evidence is insufficient to conclude something is false. You'd need to be able to show its negation is verifiable to show anything about the truth of the existence of God.

It is perfectly fine to assume God does not exist for the purpose of doing science, and that's a perfectly rational position to take. However, it is not a proof, so you have not done enough to show the public that god does not exist.

[Wiscoman]

It is perfectly fine to assume God does not exist for the purpose of doing science, and that's a perfectly rational position to take. However, it is not a proof, so you have not done enough to show the public that god does not exist.

The burden of proof is with the claimant. If it were the other way around, we'd be disproving every crazy-assed thing someone came up with. Was John Wilkes Booth possessed by demons? Up to you to prove he wasn't. Was the Hindenburg brought down by a UFO? I don't know, prove it wasn't.

It's not up to skeptics to prove a god doesn't exist, it's up to believers to prove it does.

[steelish]

Not only can bumblebees not fly but kangaroos cannot jump. Same mathematical logic. :)Both of these concepts are based on inaccurate information and assumptions - the bee is a solid mass and not almost completely hollow, the kangaroo weighs and acts the same as a sack of potatoes when various adaptations to muscle make jumping a more efficient method of travel.

I'll dig out some more but I think it may need to be a seperate thread...


How about the anomaly of the Duck-billed Platypus? That creature defies all logic. An animal that lays eggs, yet produces milk and nurses it's young...

[Thorne]

As for the temperature scale:
My point is the actual temperature we identify as 100 celcius may in fact be different from the true temperature at which water boils if some divine entity were causing the true laws of nature to be violated in all instances. In this case we would discover false laws based on the violations.
It doesn't matter what the so called actual temperature should be. A being violating the laws of nature in all instances is identical in results to no being violating said laws. It's not a proof of divine intervention, though an assumption of divine intervention can be made if you wish. But why would you?


Model A provides evidence for god not existing as within Model A the statement god does not exist is true.
No, it does not provide such evidence. Assumptions are not evidence. If any evidence for the existence of gods were to be found it would falsify our assumption, thereby making our hypothesis false.

Model B provides evidence for god existing as within Model B the statement god exists is true. None of this evidence is useful however as it is all circular reasoning and as neither of these models is consistent assuming a statement doesn't result in its proof.
Again, the assumption of the existence of gods' does not constitute evidence of their existence.
In these two instances either hypothesis works. You can assume gods exist or not and the results are identical. However, there is no evidence of such existence, so the only reason for hypothesizing them is to make yourself feel better. Their existence, if it is true, has no bearing on the running of the universe.


the axioms of science are correct then one is forced to conclude god does not exist.
I'm not sure which axioms you are referring to here, but the only reason to conclude that gods do not exist is because there is no evidence of them. For the same reason we can reasonably conclude that unicorns do not exist, that there is no green cheese on the Moon, and no ancient civilizations on Mars.


This means any argument for the existence of god would have to argue the scientific method was wrong.
The scientific method is simply a tool used to verify the work of fallible human beings. Repeated experiments and observations, duplication by independent sources and peer review of data and conclusions. There's nothing to say that you cannot prove anything, just that you have to have the evidence and the data to verify it.

However these statements have not been shown and from a logical standpoint are not derivable unless there are axioms of science that imply statements about god.
I don't understand this at all. Are you saying that we cannot prove God exists unless we make God's existance an axiom? "God exists, therefore we have proven that God exists"? Which god? Your god, or Caesar's god, or Muhammed's god? All of them? None of them?

[Thorne]

The Ancient Greeks have no verifiable evidence of gravity, and thus should conclude gravity does not exist. Of course this is a false conclusion.
You're saying they didn't know that if you dropped something it would fall? That's a silly notion. Of course the Greeks knew about gravity. They didn't know what it was, and they certainly weren't able to quantify it, but that doesn't mean it did not exist.

Absence of verifiable evidence is insufficient to conclude something is false. You'd need to be able to show its negation is verifiable to show anything about the truth of the existence of God.
No argument from me here. I've said all along that you cannot prove a negative. I've never said that gods cannot exist. I've only said there is no evidence that they do and therefor no reason to believe that they do. There's no evidence that Neverland doesn't exist either. That doesn't mean Peter Pan will be dropping by tomorrow.

It is perfectly fine to assume God does not exist for the purpose of doing science, and that's a perfectly rational position to take. However, it is not a proof, so you have not done enough to show the public that god does not exist.
You misunderstand! I don't have to prove that he doesn't exist! Again, such a proof is impossible. If you want people to believe he does exist, then it's up to you to provide proofs of that existence.

[Midnytedreams]

But hasn't science in some way proven the existence
It is now known as a scientific fact that , matter is never and can never be destroyed only changed into a new state of being.

The religious believe this proves that when we die,our matter {soul} is released from our body.

No I am not religious zealot that believes it but a question should be raised all people of the world , going back to the first people here have believed in something. Even reincarnation is a transferance of matter. If science wasn't even known then , why did all people believe that you went somewhere... Even before religion this belief existed.

[SadisticNature]

If people want to use the existence of god to do science they'd have to prove the existence of god and then apply those properties. However, the onus of proof in other endeavors is rather different. I've never contended that using god to do science is sensible, or that assuming god exists for the purpose of verifying some scientific fact is useful.

For instance, in theology it would be a rather pointless to argue that you can't prove god exists, therefore you shouldn't study the divine at all. Similarly if you are studying Aquinas and metaphysics, arguing there is no soul will not lead to understanding of the philosophical implications.

Furthermore, there are countless examples where assuming something is true and studying the consequences is very useful, particularly but not exclusively if a contradiction arises leading to a refutation.

In any of these above, assuming the non-existence of god would be pointless and would curb discussion. Just because its correct for science doesn't mean it's correct in general. If something is not known to be true or false there are benefits to looking at the consequences of both truth and falsity often with a context dependence. For example P = NP? is an open conjecture. Looking at the implications of P = NP could potentially lead to a refutation of P = NP by contradiction. Furthermore if P = NP turns out to be true, having studying the consequences in advance, we would have a huge number of immediate results, and a surge in research. Likewise looking at P not equal to NP could lead to a refutation by contradiction, or new results that follow from P not equal to NP. In computer science the correct approach is to study both possibilities.

Since its so often the case that the correct approach is to study both possibilities, I don't see why in this particular case its wrong to study both possibilities calling one study Theology and the other study Science. Particularly since that is what eventually happened in the academic community.

[SadisticNature]

Scientists often believe in unproven conjectures. They have arguments and intuitions and posit theories. These theories are eventually tested. For instance Newton believed that without air resistance any two objects would fall at the same speed. This wasn't tested until well after his death, he had some evidence for it, and some evidence against it, but was able to pick a side without having conclusive evidence. All of theoretical physics is done by reasoned conjectures. The theory of relativity involves objects at speeds we are no where close to producing so can't be experimentally verified for large scales. Yet we still have conjectures, some of which are right and some of which are wrong. Dawkins has even pointed to an example in Biology where the two conjectures were polar opposites, and reasonable scientists held both positions until further evidence ended the debate.

If you present the world with a widespread correct proof that god does not exist you would reduce religions down to a few radical fanatics, determined to deny the truth. In the absence of further evidence however, I contend that both positions are reasonable.

[SadisticNature]

If you prefer replace gravity by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the point remains the same.

As for convincing people in either direction. If you want people to abandon a belief in A you have to show them good reasons for not A, in some cases an outright proof. If you want people to abandon a belief in not A you have to show them good reasons for A, in some cases an outright proof.

My point isn't that you should believe in god. My point is you can't argue its irrational to believe in a conjecture (God) unless you have strong evidence of its falsity, which by many peoples standards you do not.

[Thorne]

But hasn't science in some way proven the existence
It is now known as a scientific fact that , matter is never and can never be destroyed only changed into a new state of being.
No, energy can never be destroyed. Matter is converted to energy all the time, and energy can (theoretically) be converted back to matter.

The religious believe this proves that when we die,our matter {soul} is released from our body.
And just when did someone actually prove that there is a soul?

No I am not religious zealot that believes it but a question should be raised all people of the world , going back to the first people here have believed in something. Even reincarnation is a transferance of matter. If science wasn't even known then , why did all people believe that you went somewhere... Even before religion this belief existed.
The fact that so many believe something does not make it real. And reincarnation is, if it's true, a transference of soul, if there is such a thing. And the reason that so many people believe, want to believe, in some form of life after death is because they are afraid of death. It is very difficult to conceive of the universe continuing on without us, that our lives are so short and meaningless to the rest of the cosmos. It's much more comforting to believe that our souls will go somewhere, anywhere, after death. That doesn't make it true, however.

[Thorne]

Since its so often the case that the correct approach is to study both possibilities, I don't see why in this particular case its wrong to study both possibilities calling one study Theology and the other study Science. Particularly since that is what eventually happened in the academic community.
No one said it was wrong to study theology. Only that it's wrong to declare your assumptions to be absolute truth just because you want them to be. If you wish to hypothesize a universe with gods, without providing any evidence for those gods, there's no reason you cannot do that. But why should you? If the universe works equally well with gods as without them, why complicate the issues?

[Thorne]

Scientists often believe in unproven conjectures. They have arguments and intuitions and posit theories. These theories are eventually tested.
"Tested" is the key word, here. Anyone can believe anything they like. But can you test your hypotheses?

For instance Newton believed that without air resistance any two objects would fall at the same speed. This wasn't tested until well after his death, he had some evidence for it, and some evidence against it, but was able to pick a side without having conclusive evidence.
Here, too, it was a subject which could be tested. Even if the technology for accurate testing wasn't yet available, a test of the problem could be conceived, and executed. To my knowledge, there are no valid tests for the presence, or absence, of gods. Any tests which have tried to demonstrate the existence of supernatural forces have all failed. You can pick whichever side you want, but when test after test shows that these forces do not exist, and no tests show that they do, then sooner or later you have to admit that you might be wrong.

All of theoretical physics is done by reasoned conjectures. The theory of relativity involves objects at speeds we are no where close to producing so can't be experimentally verified for large scales.
Read this (http://geobeck.tripod.com/frontier/planet.htm)to see one way that relativity was confirmed.

If you present the world with a widespread correct proof that god does not exist you would reduce religions down to a few radical fanatics, determined to deny the truth. In the absence of further evidence however, I contend that both positions are reasonable.
While we cannot prove that gods do not exist, it can be shown that the gods as defined by religions cannot exist. One of the reasons for the demise of the ancient gods, Zeus, Odin, Jupiter, etc., is that science showed that the effects which people had ascribed to them (thunder, lightning, wind, storms) were natural effects, following natural laws. Any objective reading of the Bible will show that God, as defined in the Bible, cannot exist. There are just too many internal contradictions, as well as discrepancies with observed nature. So, while it can be reasonable to say that there are no gods because we can find no evidence for them, it is not as reasonable to say that, despite a lack of evidence, there must be gods.

[FirstBorn]

Up to 4 your argument makes sense. However once you have asserted by assumption an axiom is true, you can either show it false by contradiction, or you have a model of the universe in which its true, so within that model 5 is certainly wrong. 6 is true, however the same argument can be made about assuming gods don't exist.

7. is a reach that doesn't follow from 1 to 6 at all. It isn't even provably true, as how would you identify divine influence if it were happening in 100% of experiments.

Wery well as for 4. We can tell for absolute sure no deity described in religius writing will actually intervene in the cases where is says they will. That does not exclude the existence of deities. But they clearly arent the ones described in texts. Given that what we chose to work from in 1. is beond the scope of our experiments (or we would have some indication as to the truth of 1.) , what we have spent our time doing is just an expensive day in the lab proving no more or less.

Now lets have som fun with this logic of yours.

1. Assume there are gods, dragons and no sundays.
2. Do our models and theories of the universe still apply?
(well they do save for the testing of religius texts claiming youll be struck by lightning and calendars with sundays, but thats just crap that others belive)

3. Yes, they do, save for those tiny bits we took out answering 2.
4. Then there probably are gods, dragons and no sundays.
5. Is there evidence for gods? (clearly none whatsoever but none against either save for the bits about texts)
6. Gods, dragons and no sundays exist by assumption 1 so in this theory absolutely.
7. Then to the best of our knowledge there are gods, dragons and no sundays.

Now where you messed up badly was 6. "6. Gods exist by assumption 1 so in this theory absolutely."
You put out a theory and a powerpoint demonstration with irelevant graphs then shouted bad science at everyone who called your bluff.

Clearly if you had any intention of proving or disputing assumption 1. youd have done some experiments that would be affected by that assumption.

Since tests came up blank all you got is an assumption or really a hypothesis you cant prove atall. Now your by all meens welcome to keep beliving that your right in that hypothesis. But untill you come up with evidence or atleast results indicating that you could be right. Thats all you get to call it a hypothesis wich is by definition inferior to law and theory.

I will agree that given the infinity of the universe and a bunch of unanswered questions. An agnostic point of wiew would be reasonable. Compared to either side atleast. That is millitant atheism and religius fundamentalism.

However given the fun of messing with peoples minds and all that. Loud blasphemy and atheism offers by far the most fun.

[SadisticNature]

My argument was just a parroting of an argument done in the opposite direction, which also did no tests. I'm not saying its a good argument. In fact I argued in order for the assumption to have value, one of the models has to be contradictory.

I have no problem with calling it the god hypothesis. My argument here is that there is no good proof that god does not exist, and that its not irrational to choose to believe in god.

People are repeatedly claiming I posited that the existence of god is an absolute truth and that's outright hogwash. I've just posited they can't show that belief in god is irrational behavior and they find that offensive. Argue against the claim, don't try and move the goalposts to make the arguments work.

Lastly, why is it that people jump all over me for an exact duplication of someone elses argument in the reverse direction. You aren't doing science you're doing politics in the sense that if it supports your ideas it doesn't matter how bad the work is. I used that argument not because I think its correct, but to demonstrate that the originally posited argument was equally bad. Neither model does any testing.

As a technical point, gods could carry out certain effects in patterns that would appear to be natural laws. The sciences have no way of proving that false, it's just an unlikely explanation that has no predictive power.

Again, I mean more of relativity than just e=mc^2. What about time distortion of two objects moving away from each other each moving at a fraction below the speed of light, hence their relative velocity being greater than light speed? Now, the same problem for an object the size of a spaceship persay so one avoids the potential for complications due to fundamental breakdown (Examples we have are quantum scale and without a grand unifying theory its hard to understand the differences at a larger scale, but its certainly reasonable to predict the fundamental breakdown plays a signficant role).

Also I've never made an argument for a biblical god or a specific bit of mythology, you may have noticed an absence of religious quotes that run rampant in these debates. I mean god here in something close to Einstein's sense of the word. If you want to replace god by "dragons" or "the flying spaghetti monster" I'll make the same arguments.

I never talked about my assumptions being absolute truth, I talked about them being true within a model. This is by definition local truth. As mentioned before, you should read about formal logic and models before wildly misinterpreting my statements and misrepresenting my positions.

[Thorne]

My point isn't that you should believe in god. My point is you can't argue its irrational to believe in a conjecture (God) unless you have strong evidence of its falsity, which by many peoples standards you do not.
And my point is that there is ample evidence for the falsity of gods, enough to satisy me and many others, while there is no evidence for the existence of those gods.

And some people, the very religious, would not be swayed by any evidence whatsoever. Even if I could prove, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that God does not exist, those people would deny the proofs, call it Satan's work and, if they had their way, hang me from the nearest tree. The depth of their faith is not a testament to the truth of their beliefs, only to their own ignorance.

[Thorne]

I'm sorry about some delay in my responses. With the site being up and down today the delays have been unavoidable.

My argument was just a parroting of an argument done in the opposite direction, which also did no tests. I'm not saying its a good argument. In fact I argued in order for the assumption to have value, one of the models has to be contradictory.
I thought that my argument implied tests, i.e., the search for evidence of gods. Your argument not only did not imply tests, but equated assumptions with evidence, a definite difference.

I have no problem with calling it the god hypothesis. My argument here is that there is no good proof that god does not exist, and that its not irrational to choose to believe in god.
And it's my stance that the person(s) making an extraordinary claim, such as the existence of supernatural beings, is the one who must provide evidence for his claim.

People are repeatedly claiming I posited that the existence of god is an absolute truth and that's outright hogwash.
If I have I apologize. I'm too used to dealing with people who claim just that.

I've just posited they can't show that belief in god is irrational behavior and they find that offensive. Argue against the claim, don't try and move the goalposts to make the arguments work.
Then explain to me what is rational about believing in beings which cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be touched and do not appear to have any influence on the workings of the universe? Is believing in large, white, talking rabbits rational? What about leprechauns? Or fairies? None of these can be proven to NOT exist, but after thousands of years of searching there has not yet been any evidence for them.

Lastly, why is it that people jump all over me for an exact duplication of someone elses argument in the reverse direction. You aren't doing science you're doing politics in the sense that if it supports your ideas it doesn't matter how bad the work is. I used that argument not because I think its correct, but to demonstrate that the originally posited argument was equally bad. Neither model does any testing.
As I stated above, your model was not a reverse of mine. I implied a search for evidence (testing) while you did not.

As a technical point, gods could carry out certain effects in patterns that would appear to be natural laws. The sciences have no way of proving that false, it's just an unlikely explanation that has no predictive power.
As a technical point you are correct. But that is like saying that Zeus casts down lightning bolts from the heavens by rubbing clouds together to form electrical charges. It could be true, but it seems kind of silly to speculate so.

Again, I mean more of relativity than just e=mc^2. What about time distortion of two objects moving away from each other each moving at a fraction below the speed of light, hence their relative velocity being greater than light speed? Now, the same problem for an object the size of a spaceship persay so one avoids the potential for complications due to fundamental breakdown (Examples we have are quantum scale and without a grand unifying theory its hard to understand the differences at a larger scale, but its certainly reasonable to predict the fundamental breakdown plays a signficant role).
I haven't got the education to argue the merits of relativity but it's my understanding that test with atomic clocks and space vehicles traveling at fairly high speeds have verified much of the time distortion claims. And direct observation, as shown in that Asimov article I linked to, have also shown the validity of relativity.

I never talked about my assumptions being absolute truth, I talked about them being true within a model. This is by definition local truth. As mentioned before, you should read about formal logic and models before wildly misinterpreting my statements and misrepresenting my positions.
And all I'm saying is that your model was flawed, as noted above.

[Thorne]

I will agree that given the infinity of the universe and a bunch of unanswered questions. An agnostic point of wiew would be reasonable. Compared to either side atleast. That is millitant atheism and religius fundamentalism.
I agree, an agnostic point of view is reasonable. I choose an atheist point of view as a personal preference. I have not seen any compelling evidence of gods in general. Should such evidence be found I would be more than happy to re-evaluate my position. I'm not holding my breath, though.

[VaAugusta]

I was thinking about the effects God has on people. If believing in God can make a person try harder, or make them bolder, then God must exist. I mean in this in a very Platonic Theory of Forms kinda way.

[EDQ]

were di humanty get a set of social rules from. how do we as a people get along. you may not teach the "ten comanents" but for the most part we try to live by them. in less merder. rape and stealing is a good thing.

[DuncanONeil]

No one said it was wrong to study theology. Only that it's wrong to declare your assumptions to be absolute truth just because you want them to be. If you wish to hypothesize a universe with gods, without providing any evidence for those gods, there's no reason you cannot do that. But why should you? If the universe works equally well with gods as without them, why complicate the issues?


Proof in the nature of the efficient cause. We find in our experience that there is a chain of causes: nor is it found possible for anything to be the efficient cause of itself, since it would have to exist before itself, which is impossible. Nor in the case of efficient causes can the chain go back indefinitely, because in all chains of efficient causes, the first is the cause of the middle, and these of the last, whether they be one or many. If the cause is removed, the effect is removed. Hence if there is not a first cause, there will not be a last, nor a middle. But if the chain were to go back infinitely, there would be no first cause, and thus no ultimate effect, nor middle causes, which is admittedly false. Hence we must presuppose some first efficient cause ... that which can be called a creator.

[DuncanONeil]

The key word is actually "eventually"!


"Tested" is the key word, here. Anyone can believe anything they like. But can you test your hypotheses?

Here, too, it was a subject which could be tested. Even if the technology for accurate testing wasn't yet available, a test of the problem could be conceived, and executed. To my knowledge, there are no valid tests for the presence, or absence, of gods. Any tests which have tried to demonstrate the existence of supernatural forces have all failed. You can pick whichever side you want, but when test after test shows that these forces do not exist, and no tests show that they do, then sooner or later you have to admit that you might be wrong.

Read this (http://geobeck.tripod.com/frontier/planet.htm)to see one way that relativity was confirmed.

While we cannot prove that gods do not exist, it can be shown that the gods as defined by religions cannot exist. One of the reasons for the demise of the ancient gods, Zeus, Odin, Jupiter, etc., is that science showed that the effects which people had ascribed to them (thunder, lightning, wind, storms) were natural effects, following natural laws. Any objective reading of the Bible will show that God, as defined in the Bible, cannot exist. There are just too many internal contradictions, as well as discrepancies with observed nature. So, while it can be reasonable to say that there are no gods because we can find no evidence for them, it is not as reasonable to say that, despite a lack of evidence, there must be gods.

[DuncanONeil]

While we cannot prove that gods do not exist, it can be shown that the gods as defined by religions cannot exist.


Interesting that you say that God can not be proven to not exist but it is impossible for Gods to exist? Strange would you not say?

[DuncanONeil]

WTH is all that list supposed to mean? It goes in two directions at the same time!


Wery well as for 4. We can tell for absolute sure no deity described in religius writing will actually intervene in the cases where is says they will. That does not exclude the existence of deities. But they clearly arent the ones described in texts. Given that what we chose to work from in 1. is beond the scope of our experiments (or we would have some indication as to the truth of 1.) , what we have spent our time doing is just an expensive day in the lab proving no more or less.

Now lets have som fun with this logic of yours.

1. Assume there are gods, dragons and no sundays.
2. Do our models and theories of the universe still apply?
(well they do save for the testing of religius texts claiming youll be struck by lightning and calendars with sundays, but thats just crap that others belive)

3. Yes, they do, save for those tiny bits we took out answering 2.
4. Then there probably are gods, dragons and no sundays.
5. Is there evidence for gods? (clearly none whatsoever but none against either save for the bits about texts)
6. Gods, dragons and no sundays exist by assumption 1 so in this theory absolutely.
7. Then to the best of our knowledge there are gods, dragons and no sundays.

Now where you messed up badly was 6. "6. Gods exist by assumption 1 so in this theory absolutely."
You put out a theory and a powerpoint demonstration with irelevant graphs then shouted bad science at everyone who called your bluff.

Clearly if you had any intention of proving or disputing assumption 1. youd have done some experiments that would be affected by that assumption.

Since tests came up blank all you got is an assumption or really a hypothesis you cant prove atall. Now your by all meens welcome to keep beliving that your right in that hypothesis. But untill you come up with evidence or atleast results indicating that you could be right. Thats all you get to call it a hypothesis wich is by definition inferior to law and theory.

I will agree that given the infinity of the universe and a bunch of unanswered questions. An agnostic point of wiew would be reasonable. Compared to either side atleast. That is millitant atheism and religius fundamentalism.

However given the fun of messing with peoples minds and all that. Loud blasphemy and atheism offers by far the most fun.

[DuncanONeil]

Wery well as for 4. We can tell for absolute sure no deity described in religius writing will actually intervene in the cases where is says they will.

An upright God-fearing man is suffering the effects of a flood. Sitting on his porch an SUV comes along and offers to take him out, he refuses. Sitting on the roof of his porch a canoe comes along offering to take him out, he refuses. Waiting patiently on his roof a helicopter approaches to aid him, he refuses.
The man drowns! In his afterlife he complains that all his years of faith and works went for naught as his God did not provide succor for him. His God replies; "Did not provide!!" "I sent you an SUV, a canoe, and a helicopter, what more did you want!?"

[DuncanONeil]

And my point is that there is ample evidence for the falsity of gods, enough to satisy me and many others, while there is no evidence for the existence of those gods.

Clearly that ample evidence is moderated by the fact that it is sufficient for you. But that places you in a very exhalted position of having been able to prove the negative! Your ample evidence of the "falsity of gods" is precisely as ample as the evidence proving the truth of gods. Although most people really only accept the premise that there is only one God.


And some people, the very religious, would not be swayed by any evidence whatsoever. Even if I could prove, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that God does not exist, those people would deny the proofs, call it Satan's work and, if they had their way, hang me from the nearest tree. The depth of their faith is not a testament to the truth of their beliefs, only to their own ignorance.

Your comments here expose a serious bias in your beliefs. Again you propose proving that something is not. On what kind of basis can you ever hope to accomplish such a feat? It is an axiom that we are incapable of proving a clear negative.

[DuncanONeil]

I agree, an agnostic point of view is reasonable. I choose an atheist point of view as a personal preference. I have not seen any compelling evidence of gods in general. Should such evidence be found I would be more than happy to re-evaluate my position. I'm not holding my breath, though.


You find absolutely nothing in the world miraculous?

[Thorne]

Proof in the nature of the efficient cause. We find in our experience that there is a chain of causes: nor is it found possible for anything to be the efficient cause of itself, since it would have to exist before itself, which is impossible. Nor in the case of efficient causes can the chain go back indefinitely, because in all chains of efficient causes, the first is the cause of the middle, and these of the last, whether they be one or many. If the cause is removed, the effect is removed. Hence if there is not a first cause, there will not be a last, nor a middle. But if the chain were to go back infinitely, there would be no first cause, and thus no ultimate effect, nor middle causes, which is admittedly false. Hence we must presuppose some first efficient cause ... that which can be called a creator.
And what caused the creator?

[Thorne]

Interesting that you say that God can not be proven to not exist but it is impossible for Gods to exist? Strange would you not say?
I said that the gods as defined by religions cannot exist. And gods of any kind, which are defined as supernatural beings, cannot be proven to exist or to not exist. It's impossible to prove a negative. One can only infer a negative from a lack of evidence for the positive.

[Thorne]

Clearly that ample evidence is moderated by the fact that it is sufficient for you. But that places you in a very exhalted position of having been able to prove the negative! Your ample evidence of the "falsity of gods" is precisely as ample as the evidence proving the truth of gods. Although most people really only accept the premise that there is only one God.
To clarify this, the evidence which is sufficient for me is thousands of years of lack of evidence for gods. Evidence of the falsity of gods is contradictions and outright fabrications in the testaments for those gods. But these are the gods which have been defined by religions, not the possibility of unknown gods.

Your comments here expose a serious bias in your beliefs. Again you propose proving that something is not. On what kind of basis can you ever hope to accomplish such a feat? It is an axiom that we are incapable of proving a clear negative.
No, I said IF I could prove the negative, not that I could. My point is that some people would not believe ANY amount of evidence which contradicts their preconceived notions. 9/11 "truthers" discard all engineering and scientific evidence and insist that 9/11 was a government plot; "Birthers" deny all evidence and insist that Obama was born in Africa. "Creationsists" deny all geological evidence and declare the world to be 6000 years old. No amount of evidence to the contrary will sway these whack-jobs. And god believers are no less intransigent.

[DuncanONeil]

Logic of cause and effect demands that there is a first effect. That effect by definition is best described as the infinite. Which also by definition we can not understand.

All that aside the "proof" stands by itself. Or should I present the other four?


And what caused the creator?

[DuncanONeil]

No matter how you spin that you stated clearly that god may exist and that god can not exist.


I said that the gods as defined by religions cannot exist. And gods of any kind, which are defined as supernatural beings, cannot be proven to exist or to not exist. It's impossible to prove a negative. One can only infer a negative from a lack of evidence for the positive.

[DuncanONeil]

You mean like the folks that dismiss all contrary evidence of an impending global man made disaster that is variously going to; drown us, starve us, or subject us to harmful weather?

The groups you cite are each an exceedingly small minority.

Oh yes then there are the liberals that and their refusal to deal with truth, against their ideas or people and for their opponents ideas or people.


No, I said IF I could prove the negative, not that I could. My point is that some people would not believe ANY amount of evidence which contradicts their preconceived notions. 9/11 "truthers" discard all engineering and scientific evidence and insist that 9/11 was a government plot; "Birthers" deny all evidence and insist that Obama was born in Africa. "Creationsists" deny all geological evidence and declare the world to be 6000 years old. No amount of evidence to the contrary will sway these whack-jobs. And god believers are no less intransigent.

[Thorne]

Logic of cause and effect demands that there is a first effect. That effect by definition is best described as the infinite. Which also by definition we can not understand.

All that aside the "proof" stands by itself. Or should I present the other four?
I don't know what you mean. But if men can contemplate an infinite creator, why can they not contemplate an infinite universe? Just because we cannot understand it, does not make it impossible.

[Thorne]

You mean like the folks that dismiss all contrary evidence of an impending global man made disaster that is variously going to; drown us, starve us, or subject us to harmful weather?

The groups you cite are each an exceedingly small minority.

Oh yes then there are the liberals that and their refusal to deal with truth, against their ideas or people and for their opponents ideas or people.
Yes, there are fanatics on both sides of these arguments. There are those who will scream bloody murder about global warming even IF evidence were to show them wrong, and there are just as fanatical denialists who will deny global warming, even IF the evidence proves them wrong.
And let's not leave out the conservatives who will fight doing what's right for people just because it's not what they believe. There are idiots on both sides of every issue.

[SadisticNature]

Proof in the nature of the efficient cause. We find in our experience that there is a chain of causes: nor is it found possible for anything to be the efficient cause of itself, since it would have to exist before itself, which is impossible. Nor in the case of efficient causes can the chain go back indefinitely, because in all chains of efficient causes, the first is the cause of the middle, and these of the last, whether they be one or many. If the cause is removed, the effect is removed. Hence if there is not a first cause, there will not be a last, nor a middle. But if the chain were to go back infinitely, there would be no first cause, and thus no ultimate effect, nor middle causes, which is admittedly false. Hence we must presuppose some first efficient cause ... that which can be called a creator.

Why must time have a beginning and an end, its certainly possible that time is cyclical and thus a chain of causes could in fact be a cycle with no end or beginning.

[Wiscoman]

Why must time have a beginning and an end...

As far as I know, the idea of cyclical time is entirely religious. There's no evidence for it. Think about it; it would require that every change ever made to the universe, every layer of paint on your wall, be undone -- i.e., order out entropy.

[Bren122]

time is a function of the universe and therefore can only exist within the universe; when the universe begins, time, however you define it, begins. when the universe ends, time ends.
Cyclical time is not religious, it is astronomical. it has religious overtones because the guys with the brains were often clerics; also, it has often been the only authority sufficiently recognised to enforce changes to calendars as required.
a year is defined as the full circuit of the earth around the sun; a day is the time taken for the earth to fully rotate on its own axis. the two do not match evenly requiring adjustments to ensure that midnight in 10000 does not fall in the middle of the day- hence calendars.
the role of the modern clock is not religious either; it is industrial. the first clocks did not have hands but simply chimed the hours. for the benefit of both workers and employers it evened out the work day- which had been traditionally fixed at dawn to dusk. the clock meant that instead of working 18hours in summer and 6hours in winter, with all the personal, familial and work impacts, you worked a standard day throughout the year.

[SadisticNature]

Why does the universe have to begin or end?

If time is cyclical it could just go expand-collapse forever without beginning or end.

Our understanding of time is very limited.

Much the way when you stand on a sphere (i.e. the earth) the surface around you appears to be flat and you might think the entire earth was flat, from a specific point in time it appears that the past and future are distinct things, but what if 10,000,000,000 years in the future (from a local perspective) the universe has finished its collapse, expands under the previous initial conditions and the same process repeats. We are back to the same point in time, you are still standing there 'making' the exact same decision. (Note this model assumes predestination over free-will).

I might even have a very bad way of explaining something like this as no one has been able to test anything like this. My point is merely that first cause is hardly an established principle of absolute truth on infinite time scales.

[Thorne]

Why does the universe have to begin or end?....

Why does there only have to be one universe? There could be an infinite number of universes out there, all expanding or contracting or exploding or undergoing heat death all at the same time. The fact that we happen to be here, on this planet, in this universe, at this particular instant of time, is simply a cosmic accident. Even as this universe eventually comes to an end, some of the matter and energy from it could interact with matter and energy from one, or two, or countless other universes, eventually collapsing into another cosmic egg, slowly building as it absorbs yet more energy and matter, until finally, billions of years down the road, that one last electron, or one last atom, or one last neutrino, plunges through the event horizon and pushes the egg into another big bang. A new universe is born, comprised of material from countless other universes, like a child with genes from dozens of parents.

And all without any need for sky fairies.

[DuncanONeil]

Why must time have a beginning and an end, its certainly possible that time is cyclical and thus a chain of causes could in fact be a cycle with no end or beginning.

That would result in the final effect being the first cause. Hence an effect and cause at the same time. Or put another way the Alpha and Omega. Being the Alpha and Omega at the same time equates to being God. QED!

Or to put it another way it is logically inconsistent for an effect to create its own cause.

[DuncanONeil]

Whether the universe would expand forever ot collapse on itself has been an issue in astronomy for some time. Recent calculations have concluded that a colapse is not possible.


Why does the universe have to begin or end?

If time is cyclical it could just go expand-collapse forever without beginning or end.

Our understanding of time is very limited.

Much the way when you stand on a sphere (i.e. the earth) the surface around you appears to be flat and you might think the entire earth was flat, from a specific point in time it appears that the past and future are distinct things, but what if 10,000,000,000 years in the future (from a local perspective) the universe has finished its collapse, expands under the previous initial conditions and the same process repeats. We are back to the same point in time, you are still standing there 'making' the exact same decision. (Note this model assumes predestination over free-will).

I might even have a very bad way of explaining something like this as no one has been able to test anything like this. My point is merely that first cause is hardly an established principle of absolute truth on infinite time scales.