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Off-topic forums => Completely Unrelated => Topic started by: Kudistos Megistos on 2011-04-18 22:11:59
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As if we didn't already have enough trouble with Islamic fundamentalists, American-style evangelical movements have been popping up across Britain, ready to oppose evolution teaching in schools and gay rights, and accuse everyone else of intolerance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjp4A6jBWzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1R0aRgEBrg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cetLQUiDJHg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOSI5BVySK4
Their opposition to the Mosque in part four was amusing. We should give guns to them and to the people who want to build the Mosque, then let them fight it out. The biggest winner would be society.
I was also amused by the bird shitting on that man's shirt. A message from god, clearly. The message seems to be "STFU".
This documentary raises two questions.
Firstly, why do religious people think they're being discriminated against if they aren't given special privileges? I'm aware that this mentality is common amongst a lot of groups, but it seems to be particularly strong amongst them. They seem to think it's discrimination if they're not allowed to force everyone else to do what they want and to discriminate against people they don't like, or who remind them of aspects of their own personality that they would rather keep hidden in a certain kind of cabinet or small room used for the purpose of hanging clothes.
Secondly, can we ship these idiots off to America like we did in the olden days? Australia used to be the dumping ground for our criminals and America used to be the dumping ground for our fundies*. We should bring those policies back
*inb4 Bosola tells us that the number of fundies who went to America and the number of convicts who went to Australia is exaggerated and that most people emigrated for economic reasons
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last thing this world needs is more monkey-trial bullshittery
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I'm so incredibly tired of religion in general.
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So am I. Especially the religion of peace.
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I just think as a race, we should have evolved past the need for a belief in an omnipotent being. However, people are too brainwashed to realize what the concept of "god" was, and the concept of "god" is so indefinable that it's impossible to prove it doesn't exist, because the concept is so vague. It's like saying the pillow behind me is invisible and ethereal, but it's there. How do I know, you ask? Simple, because I know, I don't need evidence to prove to you that there's an invisible ethereal pillow behind me, it's there, case closed, and nothing you can ever say or prove will ever prove me wrong.
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This is what I get for believing in a god. Stupid religious people do stupid things and then everyone thinks that anyone who is religious is automatically like that, because people just look at what the extremists do.
Well fuck me sideways.
I'm not saying I go to church much (or at all), but still, its annoying.
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This is what I get for believing in a god. Stupid religious people do stupid things and then everyone thinks that anyone who is religious is automatically like that, because people just look at what the extremists do.
Well fuck me sideways.
I'm not saying I go to church much (or at all), but still, its annoying.
I would just like to note that I do not dislike religion from a "holy shit, fundies are nuts" perspective. I just find logical flaws with the very concept of religion. It seems, to me, much harder to believe in a god, than to not believe in a god. Don't think that I don't respect your right to believe in a god either, I just dislike religion.
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I just think as a race, we should have evolved past the need for a belief in an omnipotent being.
Whilst religion is fake and rubbish there is no way to know if there is something greater than ourselves be it a being or a law or whatever outside of our scope of understanding. I think it is just as silly to say there definitely isnt as to say definitely is. Also, where the big bang came from or how will never be answered by science. Science cannot explain where science came from.
The belief in God or a being isn't the issue here, it is the ideologies ( religions) which surround the idea and indoctrinate people. I don't go church, I don't believe in religion or "god" as a physical being in the sky, but equally I do believe there has to be something greater. That doesn't mean I have to follow a religion to believe that. I don't know what is out there or why we are here. I only know it is unlikely to be a simple explosion from nowhere which explains everything.
I also know that religion is a load of man made rubbish. One should not confuse creator argument with religion. It is possible to believe in God or creator without the need to follow any religion or ideology. If one follows the basics, no murder, no steal, no hurt, the world would be a better place. We don't need an ideology to tell us what is good and bad.
It is stark raving obvious.
edit. It is when religious ideology tells its followers what to do that we get problems. It is in the interpretation of what god wants too often and in reality, God is not to be found in any of these books. Just human imagination.
edit 2. And some times it isn't down to interpretation and that is worse
Mohammed is God's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless
to the unbelievers but merciful to one another" Quran 48:29
Qur'an (5:51) - "O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people."
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Also, where the big bang came from or how will never be answered by science. Science cannot explain where science came from.
Actually M-Thoery offers a logical explanation for the cause of the big bang. Unfortunately most people don't know, don't understand, or don't care to study theoretical physics and people still relentlessly use this as an excuse for disproving science in general. Not that I am saying that is what your doing. However it is just what it sounds like a theory, which is the beauty of science. The basis of science is that your discoveries will always be proven entirely wrong or expanded upon without exception. Which is the exact opposite of the organized religious goal. Although they take it upon themselves to alter these “ancient” texts whenever something doesn't coencide with their agenda.
I have no problem with a belief in god, I actually believe in a higher existence myself, but to my mind the key flaw and endless problem of organized relgion is this.
the farther you stray from the ideals set by your relgious text, the more respectable you become in the religious community. For example people who believe in jesus and his teaching yet wage wars for nothing other than blind greed. When you refuse to allow yourself to be proven wrong, in general, you delute and distort the foundations of your mind and therefore any society you have dominion or sway over.
SCIENCE FTW!!!!
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Actually M-Thoery offers a logical explanation for the cause of the big bang.
It offers a complete theory, 1 of many and is totally and utterly unprovable. Even Dawkins acknowledges that where the laws of science came from and how, is a question that is unlikely to ever be answered.
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Actually M-Thoery offers a logical explanation for the cause of the big bang.
It offers a complete theory, 1 of many and is totally and utterly unprovable. Even Dawkins acknowledges that where the laws of science came from and how, is a question that is unlikely to ever be answered.
exactly my point. Sorry for the grammar erros I'm on a phone. Essentially what I believe is that the universe is emergant, or ever expanding and changing, therefor the scientific method is much more useful because it mimics the fabric of the universe. Nothing is absolutely right, nothing is safe from being changed or thrown out all together. Religion is the exact opposite because it fights against the nature of the universe by spreading static, outdated and unchangeable under the penalty of the exile or death.
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I agree :) Religion isn't there to help people... it is there to tell people what to do and what to believe and give false hope and comfort to people that death is not the end and that there is a greater good (who knows maybe there is, but it aint found in those books).
Religion may have provided an evolutionary advantage at 1 point, in terms that it allows a human mind to cope with the harsh reality of life and death. Nowadays it has run its course and is a burden... just like some human emotions also turn out to be a burden.
Religion has had its day. It is the enemy of science and progress and freedom.
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Even Dawkins acknowledges that where the laws of science came from and how, is a question that is unlikely to ever be answered.
If Dawkins said that (and it sounds like a misquote), he's clearly going senile.
Science has time and time again explained things that people had previously thought were inexplicable. It has done things that were literally unimaginable to people who lived a few hundred years earlier.
The assumption that we have now reached the limit, and that what has not yet been explained will never be explained, is a supremely arrogant and yet depressingly common one.
I rather wager that, just as science today answers questions thought unanswerable 100 years ago, the science of 2111 will answer questions that some people today think are unanswerable.
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Science has time and time again explained things that people had previously thought were inexplicable
Explaining where itself came from is not possible and is completely different thing. Most scientists I would think, would agree. Dawkins certainly does. Hardtalk, BBC (I think it was). Dawkins is not senile, he is simply rational.
How do you explain where time comes from in a place where it does not exist? How do you explain things that defy how you are even alive? It is not possible. Science explains things that are theoretically possible to explain. It isn't theoretically possible imho to explain where a law comes from by the laws themselves. That is logical. That's why dawkins agrees.
Science has never once proved or explained how the universe came into being (it explains it by the start but not the cause) or where the laws of science came from and it never will.
proving any of those theories is impossible. It is just as impossible to prove if there is a god or not. I am afraid you are going to be a very disappointed person if you expect science to answer everything. It won't.
You can't use science to explain where science came from, because you are using science, which is limited to its own existence, and not to how and where it came from, which exist outside of the laws of science that we live by.
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moreover, even if it were possible, which it almost certainly isn't... the human race is unlikely to survive long enough to even realise that dream. I can guarantee you that we will never know where and how the laws came into being. So far, so good from my side of the argument. :mrgreen:
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Science has time and time again explained things that people had previously thought were inexplicable
Explaining where itself came from is not possible and is completely different thing.
I'll wager people 200 years ago would have said exactly the same thing about explaining where life came from, or how big or old the universe was. These things were unimaginable to them because they didn't even know how to solve the problem. We can see how wrong they were, just as people in 200 years time will see how wrong we were, when they will (probably) have tools at their disposal to do things we currently think are impossible.
Hey, I'll let you into a little secret. People thousands of years ago lacked certain simple mathematical concepts; to them, certain questions that modern primary school children can solve were deemed impossible to answer, even in theory. Even mere hundreds of years ago, people had no concept of how to solve things that we now teach to high school children. Just get in your time machine and ask Descartes a question that requires calculus to solve. He would not only tell you that he couldn't do it, but also that it was unanswerable; he would say this with the same certainty with which you claim that we'll never know how the universe was created.
How do you explain where time comes from in a place where it does not exist? How do you explain things that defy how you are even alive? It is not possible. Science explains things that are theoretically possible to explain. It isn't theoretically possible imho to explain where a law comes from by the laws themselves. That is logical. That's why dawkins agrees.
Science has never once proved or explained how the universe came into being or where the laws of science came from and it never will.
See, there you go again.
You're assuming that because we don't currently have any concept of how this problem will be solved, we never will.
Science, technology and mathematics constantly find ways to solve problems that were previously thought to be not only unsolvable in practice, but also unsolvable in theory because people (quite naturally, but arrogantly) couldn't think beyond the time they lived in. We can't imagine a world where the origin of the universe is explainable, just like we can't visualise a fourth spacial dimension.
But our inability to visualise things is no reason to think that they can't exist or happen.
proving any of those theories is impossible. It is just as impossible to prove if there is a god or not. I am afraid you are going to be a very disappointed person if you expect science to answer everything. It won't.
I'll make a little wager with you.
If we're still alive in 100 years time (don't discount the possibility, unless you also think that medical progress has come to a stop) and the scientific consensus is still that these questions are unsolvable, I owe you a coke.
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well I'm no sure if this is what DLPB meant exactly but the way I understand it is that, based on best evidence so far, we live in a universe that lis literally infinite. Therefore the knowledge laws and concepts that make up the universe are infinite. So under this pretense if science, being an emergant and expandin.g system for understanding, were to completely and comprehensively explain itself entirely at some arbitrary date in the future, it would eventually expand beyond those bounds and become something even greater once new discoveries were made. It would tehn have to be reexamined and explain itself all over again. So under my context of understanding, your essentially both right. Everything we question now can one day be entirely and thoroughly picked apart and understood but by that time there will be a whole new world of questions to answer.
so again...
SCIENCE FTW!
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the way I understand it is that, based on best evidence so far, we live in a universe that lis literally infinite
No
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prove me wrong ;D
anyway this just my own opinion based on the things I have study and my own conclusions that have surfaced. Feel free to disagree but for now m theory is solving a lot of previously unsolvable equations in the world of physics and it supports this kind of infinite view of the universe at least in that it does not disprove it or put a cap on it. In my mind, if entire universes are really floating around some space somewere just as a galaxy or a star or tbis planet then why would it end there? Perhaps it does and I'm not syaing it doesn't because the theory is much to underdevoloped to know for sure. It's just what I choose to believe. One of my bests friends brother just got his phd in theoretical physics so he's always talking about this stuff
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The general consensus is that the universe if finite in size.
This isn't because there is any kind of wall; it's just because there is a finite amount of matter and it has been travelling for a finite amount of time, namely, since the Big Bang.
EDIT:
I really recommend subscribing to this YouTube channel if you're mildly interested in astronomy but not an expert:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tdarnell
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I thought it went something like...for every question science answers, it generates a hundred more. The number is arbitrary, but does anyone honestly think that we can just answer all the questions in the universe? Where does this ability to achieve anything and everything stem from? If when you say science, you mean something that exists, that we have just not discovered/understood yet, then yes, science can certainly explain everything. But if you mean what humans are capable of understanding, there must be limitations. Understanding aside, how can you be sure there is a means of percieving everything that we don't know we don't know? Surely there are things that we don't know because we simply don't have metaphysical access to them.
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Seeing as this topic was originally about religion...
I'm religious myself, and I believe that there's nothing wrong with religion on its own. However, what people need to understand about religion is that it is strictly a belief, and must not be treated as anything more. You can believe whatever you like, and you can let it affect your life however you like, but it's never acceptable to cause trouble to other people because what you believe has nothing to do with them.
Even if you're a raging fundamentalist who believes that your religion is correct and everyone else's is wrong and everyone else should die and burn in hell for it, that has nothing to do with them because that's just what you believe. The only person that has anything to do with is you.
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But if you mean what humans are capable of understanding, there must be limitations.
Why must there be limitations?
On what do you base this claim so fervently asserted?
Why do so many people think, at a time when technology is increasing at a rate unthinkable before and when human enhancement and real artificial intelligence are just around the corner, that human thought and understanding of the universe will suddenly stop progressing? That we have reached the limit of what we already know?
Stop assuming that the early 21st century marks the peak of human intellectual achievement. People in the future will think of us as just as ignorant and small minded as we think ancient people were when they denied that humans could ever explain things that today's children learn in school.
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The general consensus is that the universe if finite in size.
This isn't because there is any kind of wall; it's just because there is a finite amount of matter and it has been travelling for a finite amount of time, namely, since the Big Bang.
Now's a good time to mention Olber's Query, which asks "If the universe if infinite in size and age, there should be a star visible at every point in the sky. There are dark spaces in the sky. Therefore the universe is either of finite age, finite size, or both".
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I thought it went something like...for every question science answers, it generates a hundred more. The number is arbitrary, but does anyone honestly think that we can just answer all the questions in the universe? Where does this ability to achieve anything and everything stem from? If when you say science, you mean something that exists, that we have just not discovered/understood yet, then yes, science can certainly explain everything. But if you mean what humans are capable of understanding, there must be limitations. Understanding aside, how can you be sure there is a means of percieving everything that we don't know we don't know? Surely there are things that we don't know because we simply don't have metaphysical access to them.
Exactly. That is exactly it. As humans we are restricted by our own laws and our own brains and universe from ever understanding everything. I think the real reason people don't like this idea is because they have let human ego get in the way and don't like the idea that we will never be able to master science. Science masters us. Everybody on this forum is going to die without knowing everything, and so will the 3 trillion to follow us. That sucks for the people who think otherwise :P
said exactly the same thing about explaining where life came from
We still do not understand how life is able to form. We know how it grows and evolves but not how it is able to form in the first place just via random chemical reactions. Sentience, emotion and mind are being debated now as much as ever. Just knowing how life ends up at a point does not explain it I am afraid.
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can we ship these idiots off to America like we did in the olden days?
Please no. We have more than enough.
Actually M-Thoery offers a logical explanation for the cause of the big bang.
It offers a complete theory, 1 of many and is totally and utterly unprovable.
MICHAEL DUFF: Where M stands for magic, mystery or membrane.
PAUL STEINHARDT: I think people get the wrong impression about scientists in that they think in an orderly, rigid way from step 1 to step 2 to step 3. What really happens that often you make some imaginative leap which at the time may seem nonsensical. When you capture the field at those stages it looks like poetry in which you are imagining without yet proving. [...] One of us, maybe it was me, began by saying oh well why can't we make a universe out of collision and Neil sort of pitching in and saying well, if you did that then you could create all the matter and radiation of the Universe, so we had this conversation, one of us completing the sentences of the other in which we kind of just, just let our imaginations go.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/parallelunitrans.shtml
I agree with your point DLPB that nothing can truly be proven. However, I don't know how logical M theory feels to me. But I'll confess it was thought up by much smarter people. Even if they were simply free associating on the way to a play (I suspect during happy hour).
WITCH!
I don't blame religion for the witch hunts. My guess is that it was more politically motivated and veiled by religion. IMO it's akin to calling someone a Communist during the cold war, or a terrorist now. Have the authorities label someone a terrorist now and it gives them carte blanche.
The general consensus is that the universe if finite in size.
This isn't because there is any kind of wall; it's just because there is a finite amount of matter and it has been travelling for a finite amount of time, namely, since the Big Bang.
Actualy this is something that's currently debated amongst physicists.
Some believe that it is finite, and is expanding as our "universe" expands from the big bang. While others believe that our big bang was not a singularity, and the universe already is at an infinite state.
I'll see if I can find a clip from the debate I just watched about this between Brian Green and Amir Aczel.
Here is the discussion I watched (http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/298642-1&buy). They start arguing about space around 10:10
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As humans we are restricted by our own laws and our own brains and universe from ever understanding everything.
We're restricted by the limited knowledge that exists in whatever era we happen to be living in.
Fortunately, our knowledge increases over time, and thus the number of things we're able to understand. This has always been the case and there is no reason to believe that it has suddenly stopped being the case within the last few decades.
I think the real reason people don't like this idea is because they have let human ego get in the way
Two can play at that game.
I think the real reason people do like that idea is because they have let human ego get in the way. youseewhatididthere.jpg? It is profoundly arrogant to think that we have come anywhere near the limits of what we can know, especially in light of the fact that people have said this in every age, but have been wrong every time. This assumption that we have reached the limits of what the human brain is one of those beliefs like the one that whatever the new fad amongst young people is is something that will destroy society. Adults in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s were wrong about rock music or fashion or video games or the internet destroying society. Adults who were children in one of those decades recognise the stupidity of their own parents but make the same mistake, saying that the current fad really will bring down society. They assume that their situation is special, and you make the same mistake when you assume that we won't continue to develop concepts that were previously inconceivable and that answer questions deemed unanswerable.
Those with big egos don't want to admit that our science will one day be looked upon the same way we see Aristotelian science: an historical curiosity that is clever but still primitive.
Those with big egos don't want to admit that others will one day be able to think in ways that they can't image, and so cling to the belief that if we can't understand something now, no-one will ever understand it. If one has to admit to being ignorant, it's much more pleasant to believe that everyone else is ignorant too.
We still do not understand how life is able to form. We know how it grows and evolves but not how it is able to form in the first place just via random chemical reactions.
We have some pretty good models. The only problem is that we have too many ways of accounting for how life came about.
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I'm still waiting for someone to explain why they think we have come to some kind of end of intellectual advancement, why we won't continue to expand our conceptual framework and solve problems once deemed unsolvable, just as we always have done. Why do people think that we've reached the limit?
This is particularly interesting since things like human mental enhancement, human genetic engineering and the technological singularity are likely to happen before the century is over, leading to far more rapid scientific advancement than we ever thought possible as we overcome the problem of low human intelligence.
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Does an amoeba have limitations? Does an ant have limitations? Does an orangutan have limitations?
Are we somehow removed from other lifeforms? "Humans don't count." Or is that how evolution goes...
Single Celled Organism=>Fish=>Frog=>Lizard=>Bird=>Monkey=>Omniscient Super Being capable of all things. At least this is what it seems like you're saying to me.
Why did past civilizations come to an end? Surely they thought they were advanced beyond the anything that came before them - because they were. I agree, we are advanced to an astounding degree...but so what? A dog can be the smartest and most talented dog in the universe, but even then, it won't be smarter than most humans.
I don't mean that we will approach a time where we say, "Oh it looks like there is nothing left to know anymore." or "I have reached my limit, I simply can't understand anything beyond what I already know." I'm saying that technology or not, we can't know what we can't know.
I'm still waiting for someone to explain why they think we have come to some kind of end of intellectual advancement, why we won't continue to expand our conceptual framework and solve problems once deemed unsolvable, just as we always have done. Why do people think that we've reached the limit?
I think that humans will suffer from a catastrophic demise before technological advancement will halt. I think we will continue to advance until we no longer exist, unless we go backwards at some point, which isn't totally unlikely. We can certainly solve problems once deemed unsolvable, no arguement there...but why do you think that we can be aware of all problems? I definetely don't think we have reached a limit already. I don't mean limitations to technological progress, I mean limitations to human capabilities.
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We're restricted by the limited knowledge that exists in whatever era we happen to be living in.
On the contrary. There are a small number of things that cannot be scoped by empirical testing within a reasonable timespan, therefore I must be right in my vague, non-committal spiritualism that suggests some absentee father figure is an excellent substitute for closely watching physical causality.
Wishy washy spiritualism: it just werks.
Just because we've 'only' discovered more than any previous generation could ever think of, and not everything, does not mean any old hokum can fill the gaps.
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Does an amoeba have limitations? Does an ant have limitations? Does an orangutan have limitations?
Are we somehow removed from other lifeforms? "Humans don't count." Or is that how evolution goes...
Single Celled Organism=>Fish=>Frog=>Lizard=>Bird=>Monkey=>Omniscient Super Being capable of all things. At least this is what it seems like you're saying to me.
If that's what it seems like I'm saying, you my wish to stop thinking in terms of false dichotomies.
They have limitations because they don't have complex language and can't understand formal logic. We do and we can. Even if we don't ever have the benefit of any kind of enhancement (which is unlikely), I don't see any theoretical limit to what humans can understand, given enough time to study. δος μοι που στω και κινω την γην. With a vocabulary of just a few tens of thousands of words, we can express an infinite number of ideas, and with the meagre tools at our disposal, we can do a lot more than you can think.
Why did past civilizations come to an end? Surely they thought they were advanced beyond the anything that came before them - because they were.
The great civilisations didn't come to an end; they merely evolved into something new and passed their knowledge onto subsequent generations.
I don't mean that we will approach a time where we say, "Oh it looks like there is nothing left to know anymore." or "I have reached my limit, I simply can't understand anything beyond what I already know."
Really? Because it seems like that's exactly what you and Seifer have been saying.
Not that we will acknowledge that we've reached a limit, but that we have a limit. I'm also getting the impression that you two believe we have either reached that limit or are very close to it.
I'm saying that technology or not, we can't know what we can't know.
And what can't we know? What makes you think you're able to say what we aren't able to know? You're confusing what we don't know with what we can't, and what we can't know now with what we can't know ever. Those are very big mistakes.
I think that humans will suffer from a catastrophic demise before technological advancement will halt.
That's trivially true, but it might not happen for billions of years. By then, we will have evolved into something completely unrecognisable as human, and likely to be as superior to us in intellect as we are to sheep. Such beings will probably teach their children how the universe was created in nursery school.
I definetely don't think we have reached a limit already. I don't mean limitations to technological progress, I mean limitations to human capabilities.
Then what makes you think we can have any idea about what kind of questions are unanswerable?
All it takes is one new theory, one new way of thinking, and these unsolvable problems might become child's play.
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False Dichtomies? Those are the terms that I thought you were thinking in…that somehow humans are different. These animals can’t understand human language, or human logic, but a Crow has Crow logic and Crow “language” that other crows can understand and react to. Enhancement as applied to mental capacities is exactly that – enhancement…it doesn’t change forms. Limited understanding can be enhanced to less limited understanding – it can’t be transformed into Absolute Understanding; just as Crow logic and language can’t be transformed into human logic and language. These things might be translated but translations are not the same thing as original forms.
Sure, humans can understand an infinite number of things, just as any other being can learn or communicate an infinite number of things – but this knowledge does not transcend human thought. Future beings of a higher intellect, will understand things in that being’s form of understanding – at some point it ceases to be “human understanding.” But I don’t think this was one of your main points.
I don’t think we have any idea about what kinds of questions are unanswerable. That’s my point; we don’t have any idea about that which we do not have any idea about. One new theory, that leads to one new way of thinking, that leads to unsolvable problems being solved is nice…but we would have to have all theories that lead to all ways of thinking, that leads to all problems being solved. Since we (you) have established that there are infinite thoughts/ideas, and all theories would be an infinite number of theories, how can a finite being do anything infinite? A finite number of finite beings for a finite amount of time cannot accomplish anything that is infinite.
What exactly is it that you were trying to say again? Sometimes after all this discussion, the initial ideas become vague and blurred.
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False Dichtomies? Those are the terms that I thought you were thinking in…that somehow humans are different. These animals can’t understand human language, or human logic, but a Crow has Crow logic and Crow “language” that other crows can understand and react to.
There's a qualitative difference between the kind of language humans have and the communications that animals use. Simple languages can only express a limited number of ideas, whereas complex ones can express anything. There are arguments, and I'm inclined to find them convincing, that the main reason for human superiority and the the victory of homo sapiens over neanderthals is software rather than hardware; i.e. it's our language that enabled us to become so successful and it was language that gave us the edge over our bigger brained cousins.
Enhancement as applied to mental capacities is exactly that – enhancement…it doesn’t change forms. Limited understanding can be enhanced to less limited understanding – it can’t be transformed into Absolute Understanding
You're making a very contentious statement as if it were something certain.
I don’t think we have any idea about what kinds of questions are unanswerable.
Really? Because the argument here is about a very specific claim about something that is deemed "unknowable".
Since we (you) have established that there are infinite thoughts/ideas, and all theories would be an infinite number of theories, how can a finite being do anything infinite? A finite number of finite beings for a finite amount of time cannot accomplish anything that is infinite.
That doesn't matter, since the debate we're having is about something that only requires knowing a finite number of things.
What exactly is it that you were trying to say again? Sometimes after all this discussion, the initial ideas become vague and blurred.
Wouldn't it be great if we could see the things that were posted earlier in the conversation and, by identifying where and how the argument started, work out what the initial ideas were?
Sigh. A girl can dream... :-\
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Complex ideas can express anything? Complex ideas can express thing to a finer degree, not a perfect degree. Saying many complex things about a topic can help to clarify what it is that is being talked about, but nothing can be expressed perfectly. If I say, "I feel happy" then you know what I am talking about because you have an idea of what happy is; I could write a 10,000 word essay describing exactly how I feel, but a feeling is a feeling, it can only be expressed imperfectly through words and thoughts.
Take any contentious statements I make as they are. I was under the impression that everything being discussed here was contentious.
Concerning the arguement as to whether something can be deemed "unknowable", I've already covered my thoughts on that issue in previous posts.
The arguement here is only concerning knowing a finite number of things if you believe that there are a finite number of things to know. That is not what I believe.
Yes, I can look back through and attempt to decipher exactly what it is that you are trying to say, and as far as I can tell, that is what we've been discussing - I just wanted to know if you thought anything should be clarified or restated, no need to pretend I'm stupid.
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yes I agree that the universe is finite, no question there. When I state my belief that existence is infinite I was referring to the multiverse or ocean of parallel universes that m theory presents. Since the theory suggests that big bangs are occurring at all times, there would literally be no end to it. Of course it's a young and flawed theory but I believe there is more there tham people are ready to accept. Infinite existence is a pretty huge blow to human ego and ivory towers everywhere. If I used the word universe in an earlier post to describe my belief then I apologize for speaking incorrectly.
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Personally I think a lot of the theories used to explain existence are every bit as ridiculous as "man in the sky"
:P
Sounds like some scientists are as desperate as religionists.
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Personally I think a lot of the theories used to explain existence are every bit as ridiculous as "man in the sky"
:P
Sounds like some scientists are as desperate as religionists.
(http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/8136/atheists.png)
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Atheists are far more critically minded and superior in thought to a religionist. Atheism is nowhere near as bad as religionist, although it can be every bit as bigoted.
A proper position to hold is either weak atheism or agnostic. I think to be so closed minded to other possibilities than pure science is just as silly as not being open to science.
The world is not that simple and it is bigger than religion and bigger than science. If anyone thinks the universe is that simple, that it can be understood by our small brains, good luck with that delusion. As I said before kud, you are looking for disappointment and you are like 10 pin bowling... and you will be the one being hit with a strike.
I am afraid that as much as you like to believe we can understand everything, we can't and no matter what science says or does, it is never going to prove or satisfactorily answer the greatest question in history "How and why is our universe here and how and why are we here."
It can answer all the questions in the universe but it won't answer from where the laws came. Crack pot theories of multi dimensions are just as baseless and fantastic as some form of creative force. There is no proof and there never will be.
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stuff
No, my point was that you're committing the same error as the man in that comic. When you say "scientists and religionfags are as bad as each other", you falsely present yourself as a rational middle ground.
I am afraid that as much as you like to believe we can understand everything, we can't and no matter what science says or does, it is never going to prove or satisfactorily answer the greatest question in history "How and why is our universe here and how and why are we here."
It can answer all the questions in the universe but it won't answer from where the laws came. Crack pot theories of multi dimensions are just as baseless and fantastic as some form of creative force. There is no proof and there never will be.
You say that with a religious fervour. As if it's some article of faith and there is no room for doubt.
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you falsely present yourself as a rational middle ground.
I don't think in this instance that taking a neutral stance is inferior. If anything, it is the only correct choice because we lack so much information and always will.
If you saw an edge of a rocky surface and couldn't see over it, you could assume there was a huge drop but there might not be (in fact it might not even be a rocky surface, that could be illusion). Your position seems to be one of thinking that 1 position is the be all and end all and that you know.
I'd say your position of thinking you know it all or will do, is 100X worse, and a silly comic isn't clever...
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you falsely present yourself as a rational middle ground.
I don't think in this instance that taking a neutral stance is inferior. If anything, it is the only correct choice because we lack so much information and always will.
The sun might rise tomorrow. It might not. We can't be absolutely certain. Not 100%. So I'm adopting an agnostic stance as to whether the sun will rise tomorrow. I don't think in this instance that taking a neutral stance is inferior. If anything, it is the only correct choice because we lack so much information and always will. seewhatididthere?
If you saw an edge of a rocky surface and couldn't see over it, you could assume there was a huge drop but there might not be (in fact it might not even be a rocky surface, that could be illusion). Your position seems to be one of thinking that 1 position is the be all and end all and that you know.
If I had seen many edges rocky surfaces before and had noticed that every single other one had a huge drop on the other side, I'd be justified in believing that this one had a drop on the other side too. Naturally, I couldn't assert anything with certainty, but I could make a pretty safe guess. I'd certainly take issue with anyone who said there definitely wasn't a drop on the other side.
You're making the typical agnostic mistake of assuming that if conclusive evidence doesn't exist, then no evidence exists and both positions are equal. That's a bad mistake to make.
And somehow, you're also managing to make the bold assertion that we definitely will never know the cause of the big bang and refusing to give any quarter to the suggestion that we will. The one assuming that one position is the be-all and end-all is you.
I'd say your position of thinking you know it all or will do, is 100X worse, and a silly comic isn't clever...
No. You're the person who's refusing to admit that you don't know everything that it's possible to know. I have a big ego, but I'm man enough to admit that people in the future will be able to understand things that are beyond my comprehension. I will be an uneducated moron by the standards of people in 1000 years time, provided that fucktards like the people in the videos I posted, or their counterparts in other religions, don't get their way.
By denying that we can know much more than we already know, you're comforting yourself with a "crab in a barrel" mentality. I think you derive comfort from the belief that, if you can't understand the mysteries of the universe, no-one ever will. That way, you can convince yourself that no-one can be smarter than you.
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My position is one of not knowing. You can wrap that up however you like. Your position is thinking your position is cleverer. Who is more smug in thinking they know it all? You seem to be attacking me for not taking either position, and then accusing me of thinking I know everything. The 2 don't go together and attacking someone for being neutral comes across as foolish in this debate. I of course consider some things more likely than others, but I certainly don't have the evidence to start choosing either position.
You have chosen a position based on a gross absence of evidence.
:mrgreen:
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Come on. Let's stick to attacking our opponent's opinions and mistakes rather than attacking our opponents themselves. We're all friends here, after all.
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My position is one of not knowing. You can wrap that up however you like. Your position is thinking your position is cleverer. Who is more smug in thinking they know it all?
There's one person here who seems to want to claim that he knows everything humans will ever know. I'm the one saying that humans in the future will know far more than me. How you came to the conclusion that I'm claiming to know everything is beyond me.
You seem to be attacking me for not taking either position, and then accusing me of thinking I know everything. The 2 don't go together
Yes they do, when the person is doing both things at the same time. Militant agnostics are at the same time fence-sitters and faith heads, because they assert the superiority of their fence-sitting to the point of dogma
and attacking someone for being neutral comes across as foolish in this debate.
You're not taking a neutral position. You're taking a very extreme position; namely that there are certain things that are necessarily unknowable. The statement "humans will never know x" is as far from neutral as we can get. It implies that you know something with absolute certainty.
Can you explain to me why "we can't know" is any less of a knowledge claim than any other statement? A lot of people seem to imply that statements like these are not knowledge claims, when it is obvious that they are. They are claims to knowledge of what can be known. What makes these types of assertions epistemically unique?
I of course consider some things more likely than others, but I certainly don't have the evidence to start choosing either position.
If you have enough evidence to consider some things more likely than others, you have enough evidence to choose a position. In fact, you have chosen a position, and without any evidence at all.
You have chosen a position based on a gross absence of evidence.
No, it's the other way around. My position that humans will continue to discover things that previous generations possible is based on the fact that they've been doing this for thousands of years, and they are now starting to develop tools to speed up this process in ways never thought imaginable.
Your belief that what is unanswerable now will never be answerable is based on blind faith.
It is as if we were arguing about whether the sun will rise tomorrow. The sun has risen every other day, so I'd say that it will probably rise tomorrow. Your position seems to be an assertion that it will never rise again, that we have had the last sunrise ever. Neither of us can conclusively prove our position, but one is more likely than the other.
We're all friends here, after all.
(http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/5757/1270163965597u.png)
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It is pointless conversing with you. You manage to twist and spin everything people say into what you want them to say. You have definitions for words, you tell dictionaries what they mean, you redefine the word "good" and you spin like a politician. A bad one. We have had this conversation haven't we... and it has come to an end. I have said what I feel, and if you don't like it, I couldn't care less.
Good day :P
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It is pointless conversing with you.
And yet you insist on doing it.
You manage to twist and spin everything people say into what you want them to say.
No, I don't need to do that. The people I argue with are fully capable of saying silly things without my help.
You have definitions for words
OH NOES!
you tell dictionaries what they mean
No, I tell you what words in the dictionary mean. Words like "dated".
you redefine the word "good" and you spin like a politician
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJv5qLsLYoo
A bad one.
That's a personal attack! :'(
We have had this conversation haven't we
No, this is definitely the first time we've had this conversation
and it has come to an end.
So you insist on having the last word.
I have said what I feel, and if you don't like it, I couldn't care less.
If you couldn't care less, why are you posting this?
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EDIT
>MFW TEXAS
NOW, THEREFORE, I, RICK PERRY, Governor of Texas, under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Texas, do hereby proclaim the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas. (http://governor.state.tx.us/news/proclamation/16038/)
(http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/7126/facepalm11.jpg)
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Seeing as this topic was originally about religion...
I'm religious myself, and I believe that there's nothing wrong with religion on its own. However, what people need to understand about religion is that it is strictly a belief, and must not be treated as anything more. You can believe whatever you like, and you can let it affect your life however you like, but it's never acceptable to cause trouble to other people because what you believe has nothing to do with them.
Even if you're a raging fundamentalist who believes that your religion is correct and everyone else's is wrong and everyone else should die and burn in hell for it, that has nothing to do with them because that's just what you believe. The only person that has anything to do with is you.
not one to nitpick, but you just proposed to send people you consider unworthy or otherwise unfit to hell. does that mean you're trying to make people believe in hell, and enforce your beliefs on others?
that aside, the longer i live the more i believe religion is just another way of exercising control over people. we would be good enough with just a moral code of conduct, and no gods.
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Watching that this thread at least started out quite calm and respectful, I was interested in posing a bit of rhetoric to improve my understanding. I'm sure these ideas are not new by any means, so I'm curious what some of the standard counter-points are.
1) From my limited understand, the scientific approach relies on repeatable, observable experiments. There are many things we can't observe directly, so the best we can do is observe the things around them (e.g. fundamental elements of matter, or black holes). Where is the flaw in trying to draw a parallel between this and a "higher power"?
2) Now to side-step the actual question of if religion is real. It has been accepted by many people that homosexuality is not a choice--it's just the way some people are. It's natural and, so long as it's not hurting anyone, there's nothing wrong with it. Of course this sort of "live and let live" idea can extend to most any inclination people have. What could be said, then, to someone who tried to draw a parallel to that and religious belief? It has been reported by psychological studies that we are hard-wired to have religious belief (e.g. applying meaning to random events). So, if following the natural tendency to believe in religion doesn't hurt anyone, is it any different from following a tendency to be (fill in the blank)?
Like I said, I'm sure these points have been raised countless times by others before me. But I hope some thoughtful feedback can help me grow in understanding.
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Watching that this thread at least started out quite calm and respectful, I was interested in posing a bit of rhetoric to improve my understanding. I'm sure these ideas are not new by any means, so I'm curious what some of the standard counter-points are.
1) From my limited understand, the scientific approach relies on repeatable, observable experiments. There are many things we can't observe directly, so the best we can do is observe the things around them (e.g. fundamental elements of matter, or black holes). Where is the flaw in trying to draw a parallel between this and a "higher power"?
2) Now to side-step the actual question of if religion is real. It has been accepted by many people that homosexuality is not a choice--it's just the way some people are. It's natural and, so long as it's not hurting anyone, there's nothing wrong with it. Of course this sort of "live and let live" idea can extend to most any inclination people have. What could be said, then, to someone who tried to draw a parallel to that and religious belief? It has been reported by psychological studies that we are hard-wired to have religious belief (e.g. applying meaning to random events). So, if following the natural tendency to believe in religion doesn't hurt anyone, is it any different from following a tendency to be (fill in the blank)?
Like I said, I'm sure these points have been raised countless times by others before me. But I hope some thoughtful feedback can help me grow in understanding.
I've found a flaw in your argument.
(http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/5032/londonprotest1ige7g1610.jpg)
(http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/2881/westboro.jpg)
(http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/9509/hamasnazisalute.jpg)
(http://ivarfjeld.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/god_bless_hitler1.jpg)
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In all fairness, there is a difference between believing in a religion and butchering everything it stands for...
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In all fairness, there is a difference between believing in a religion and butchering everything it stands for...
Yes there is, and we should be thankful that, in the West, most people completely ignore what the religions they claim to believe in actually stand for and instead adopt a largely secular moral system.
My last post illustrates what happens when people take their holy books seriously instead of just picking out the bits they like and saying that the bits they don't like are metaphors.
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Any point in which a person or people become obsessed with something is always bad. If you're obsessed with your religion you will go on crusades to murder those who are "unbelievers". You will have protests at the funerals of Soldiers. You will strap yourselves with bombs, because your religion is the one and only way and you're retarded.
The exact same can't be said about the other side though. There are no stories of devout atheists killing mass amounts of people. They are, however, just as insanely annoying as the devout religious types.
We should all just be Hindu
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We should all just be Hindu
There are plenty of ultra-violent, ultra-racist Hindus.
Granted, Hindu extremism and nationalism is usually a little more complicated than simply hating someone because they're of a different religion (as with the Protestant/Catholic situation in Northern Ireland, there are ethnic and social elements to it), and it hasn't been quite as much of a problem historically as Christian and Islamic extremism, for various reasons, but Hinduism isn't the peaceful religion that a lot of Westerners think it is.
Hell, even Buddhists sometimes do violence in the name of their religion. Just look at the mess in Sri Lanka.
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Watching that this thread at least started out quite calm and respectful, I was interested in posing a bit of rhetoric to improve my understanding. I'm sure these ideas are not new by any means, so I'm curious what some of the standard counter-points are.
1) From my limited understand, the scientific approach relies on repeatable, observable experiments. There are many things we can't observe directly, so the best we can do is observe the things around them (e.g. fundamental elements of matter, or black holes). Where is the flaw in trying to draw a parallel between this and a "higher power"?
2) Now to side-step the actual question of if religion is real. It has been accepted by many people that homosexuality is not a choice--it's just the way some people are. It's natural and, so long as it's not hurting anyone, there's nothing wrong with it. Of course this sort of "live and let live" idea can extend to most any inclination people have. What could be said, then, to someone who tried to draw a parallel to that and religious belief? It has been reported by psychological studies that we are hard-wired to have religious belief (e.g. applying meaning to random events). So, if following the natural tendency to believe in religion doesn't hurt anyone, is it any different from following a tendency to be (fill in the blank)?
Like I said, I'm sure these points have been raised countless times by others before me. But I hope some thoughtful feedback can help me grow in understanding.
Observing the observable when talking about a higher power is like trying to learn about the Sun by studying the Moon. You can learn about the sun this way, but it is not the same as studying the sun itself.
While official psychological organizations have declassified Homosexuality as a mental disorder, the exact process by which an individual becomes (is) a homosexual is more complicated, not completely known, and IS influenced by the environment (the psychological definition of environment). I mean no disrespect/intolerance, I’m speaking in science – Homosexuality is like a combination of Alcoholism and Sickle Cell anemia in terms of genotypes/phenotypes. Basically there is a genetic explanation involving alleles, carriers, and expressed traits for homosexuality, however, there is not a 1.0 correlation between identical twins and homosexuality. For fraternal twins, the correlation coefficient is like .27 and for identical twins it is like .63. Of course, this is not very PC, so most people never hear about these things.
Religious belief operated independently of genetics (although people with certain genetic profiles are more or less likely to be believers or nonbelievers just as some are more likely to be gamblers). The very nature of religion and spirituality, is something I believe is influenced by genetics and environment, but not dependent on genes or upbringing. I’d be interested in knowing specifically what studied you are referring to (are these articles peer-reviewed? Are there any potentially confounding variables?). Many natural tendencies for behavior DO hurt people. If everyone followed their natural tendencies, I imagine the world would be a very dangerous and dreadful place.
Secular Moral System…no better than a Religious moral system (given the fact there are hundreds of each type, each responsible for many horrible and wonderful things). A person needs to develop their own system of morals, but then again, who the hell trusts people with such a task.
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My last post illustrates what happens when people take their holy books seriously instead of just picking out the bits they like and saying that the bits they don't like are metaphors.
As far as Christianity goes (I don't want to run the risk of speaking for other religions as well), that's not 100% true. Extremists take certain fragments of the bible extremely seriously (hence becoming extremists :P) and seem to be completely oblivious to the rest.
In the example of Christian fundamentalists condemning gay people: Yes, the bible does condemn homosexuality. I don't know why. But the bible also tells you very clearly (and it emphasizes this far more than the homosexuality thing) not to judge other people and to "love your neighbor". The "neighbor" bit, according to what I was taught, actually is a metaphor in this context, and supposedly refers to every person you ever encounter.
If I were God, and I was talking to the guy holding the "God hates fags" sign in your second picture, I would probably say some variation of "Go to Hell and mind your own business."
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As far as Christianity goes (I don't want to run the risk of speaking for other religions as well), that's not 100% true. Extremists take certain fragments of the bible extremely seriously (hence becoming extremists :P) and seem to be completely oblivious to the rest.
But don't "liberal" Christians do exactly the same thing? The only difference is that they pick different bits to take seriously and different bits to ignore.
And as a rule, the "fundamentalist" types take a bigger proportion of it seriously.
In the example of Christian fundamentalists condemning gay people: Yes, the bible does condemn homosexuality. I don't know why. But the bible also tells you very clearly (and it emphasizes this far more than the homosexuality thing) not to judge other people and to "love your neighbor". The "neighbor" bit, according to what I was taught, actually is a metaphor in this context, and supposedly refers to every person you ever encounter.
And here's the problem. The Bible was written by lots of different people and some parts of it are very vague. As a result, someone can find a Bible passage to justify just about anything.
The reason why that's very bad is because people who are already that way inclined will read the Bible (or the Koran, or whatever) and their prejudice will turn into a crusade, because they see "God" as commanding them to wipe out whichever people or behaviour that they don't like. Taking religion can seriously massively multiply any hatreds a person already has. Homophobes will cease to find homosexuality as merely repulsive and will start to see it as a great evil that will cause the downfall of mankind like it caused the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah. Antisemites will cease to be merely paranoid and will see the Jews as Christ-killers who are forever cursed and are forever the enemies of Christendom. Muslims who are inclined towards antisemitism will read this:
The Day of Judgement will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews
This is also in the Hamas charter (note how it says "Jews" rather than "Israelis" or "Zionists"). Apparently, the majority of the Palestinian population sees fit to vote for a party that believes this.
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But don't "liberal" Christians do exactly the same thing? The only difference is that they pick different bits to take seriously and different bits to ignore.
That's quite a sweeping statement you make there. At least give the benefit of a doubt to these poor people. There must be plenty of Christians out there who don't knowingly ignore parts of the bible. (Accidentally overlooking minor details is something else.)
But as a liberal Christian myself, you kinda got me there. The beginning of Genesis can be loosely paraphrased as "God created the earth in seven days. Man was created on the sixth day." Not possible. Either those "days" are a metaphor lost in translation, or God created the Earth in such a way that it sure damn looks like it took millions upon millions of years to develop (fossils and everything). Or maybe vast amounts of DMT were involved. I don't know.
I always excuse this by saying, "... Whatever. The bible isn't supposed to be a science textbook." So I guess you could say, on some level, I do ignore some parts of the bible. Or perhaps I just have such strong faith that I believe in a religion even where it doesn't appear to make sense. You decide.
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That's quite a sweeping statement you make there. At least give the benefit of a doubt to these poor people. There must be plenty of Christians out there who don't knowingly ignore parts of the bible. (Accidentally overlooking minor details is something else.)
Then one wonders why they bother to call themselves Christians, or why they bother to take anything in the Bible seriously at all. If they profess a religion, they should know more about it.
But as a liberal Christian myself, you kinda got me there. The beginning of Genesis can be loosely paraphrased as "God created the earth in seven days. Man was created on the sixth day." Not possible. Either those "days" are a metaphor lost in translation, or God created the Earth in such a way that it sure damn looks like it took millions upon millions of years to develop (fossils and everything). Or maybe vast amounts of DMT were involved. I don't know.
I always excuse this by saying, "... Whatever. The bible isn't supposed to be a science textbook." So I guess you could say, on some level, I do ignore some parts of the bible. Or perhaps I just have such strong faith that I believe in a religion even where it doesn't appear to make sense. You decide.
I think it might be both.
But why, if people accept that there are obvious flaws in it, do some of them still see it as a good moral guide? Exactly what authority does it have if you accept that it was written by fallible humans and is not actually the work of any God? Why bother with it at all? Why not look elsewhere for a moral guide, to literature that isn't so full of vagueness or contradictions?
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I'm going to chime in here not having read what all's come before so forgive me if this has been brought up. I tend to stay away from religious debates because of the close-mindedness of many atheists. I've run into many people whose greatest argument is "There can't possibly be a God and you can't prove that there is" then just ignore everything I have to say about the subject.
That's quite a sweeping statement you make there. At least give the benefit of a doubt to these poor people. There must be plenty of Christians out there who don't knowingly ignore parts of the bible. (Accidentally overlooking minor details is something else.)
But as a liberal Christian myself, you kinda got me there. The beginning of Genesis can be loosely paraphrased as "God created the earth in seven days. Man was created on the sixth day." Not possible. Either those "days" are a metaphor lost in translation, or God created the Earth in such a way that it sure damn looks like it took millions upon millions of years to develop (fossils and everything). Or maybe vast amounts of DMT were involved. I don't know.
I always excuse this by saying, "... Whatever. The bible isn't supposed to be a science textbook." So I guess you could say, on some level, I do ignore some parts of the bible. Or perhaps I just have such strong faith that I believe in a religion even where it doesn't appear to make sense. You decide.
The creation story in the Bible is honestly like any other creation story. It attempts to give an explanation of why things are the way they are. It might be largely fictional, especially in the time it took to do certain things. Biblical scholars agree with a large degree of certainty that Moses commissioned Genesis to be written along with the remainder of the Pentateuch. It was all oral tradition passed down in a father-to-son manner. I'm not sure anything can be taken as 100% fact until the story of Abraham. This includes Eden, the Great Flood, and the Tower of Babel. These stories were either made up to fill in a gap of history or composed of some half-truths of what really happened as a way to explain how it all went down.
How could you explain to a bunch of mentally underdeveloped proto-humans that their planets took billions of years to form and for them to evolve into what they are today. They have no concept of "billions" of anything nor evolution. The story of creation basically glosses over all that and just says "God made it in six days". Seven was also a "complete" number to the Israelites so it might mean "God created the Earth [in the fullness of time]" or some such thing. Adam may very well have been the first human that God made contact with. I completely believe that God directed evolution, at whatever speed he chose to do it, to create man and all the other life. Life's mechanics are too intricate and too varied to have developed at random. Evolution without a guiding force has some HUGE problems with it.
The Great Flood likely did occur. There are lots of cultures that developed a story involving a flood that demolished the land. This may have been what happened to Atlantis. Genesis leads us to believe that only one family survived this flood. This might be the case, but if this were so then the entire Earth was not flooded. Just a portion of it was. A problem arose with what happened after the flood to create all the different languages. The Tower of Babel story was written to give an explanation of that too. It was possibly influenced by the tower of Etemenanki and added in to Genesis after the Babylonian captivity. It's never referenced anywhere else in the Bible other than those few verses that tell the story. All the various sources also have inconsistencies in its height too. The story doesn't make much sense later either. If God's purpose was to stop man from being able to all communicate with each other then just giving new languages wasn't the best way to do it. Practically any language can be translated into another language and allow people of different languages to communicate. This happens later in Genesis when Joseph calls for a Egyptian<->Hebrew interpreter.
So why are there different languages? It may have been possible that there once was one language that all men spoke and they've deviated over time. It's more likely that men developed over a wide area of the Earth and just began creating their own languages isolated from each other. But then this view contradicts the Eden story so an explanation needed to be given. Bottom line was it wasn't part of the original writings of Genesis.
Then one wonders why they bother to call themselves Christians, or why they bother to take anything in the Bible seriously at all. If they profess a religion, they should know more about it.
Can you honestly say you know EVERYTHING about science and evolution? Can you explain how gravity works? Maybe you can, many cannot. There are plenty of atheists that know next to nothing about their world-view as well.
But why, if people accept that there are obvious flaws in it, do some of them still see it as a good moral guide? Exactly what authority does it have if you accept that it was written by fallible humans and is not actually the work of any God? Why bother with it at all? Why not look elsewhere for a moral guide, to literature that isn't so full of vagueness or contradictions?
I see this statement as a contradiction. If you think the Bible was written by "fallible humans" (some of it is), then why advocate looking at other literature, written by a different set of fallible humans, as a different moral guide? You'd have to ask the Council of Trent why they included what they did. The Old Testament was compiled as a set of laws and history of the Chosen people before Christ came. After that it requires faith to believe that the New Testament is a faithful account of the teachings of Jesus and what the first century of Christianity looked like. There is a large amount of evidence to prove that there WAS a rabbi named Jesus (other than the shroud of Turin). That's as far as fact can take you. The rest is faith almost in the way that you have faith that the Earth will continue to revolve around the sun. You have no control over that and you just accept that it will continue happening.
If any of these statements didn't make a lot of sense, acknowledge the fact that I'm not a trained scholar or teacher nor do I have the greatest grasp on the English language. I also tend to write things out of order so I may have missed a point that I meant to make and forgot I didn't add it. I know what I believe, but I'm still working on how to explain it to others.
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I'm going to chime in here not having read what all's come before so forgive me if this has been brought up. I tend to stay away from religious debates because of the close-mindedness of many atheists. I've run into many people whose greatest argument is "There can't possibly be a God and you can't prove that there is" then just ignore everything I have to say about the subject.
Really?
I hear these stories a lot, especially from Americans: "an atheist said he was 100% certainly right and that there was no way that there could ever be anything that could be called God and then he tried to put me into a gas chamber".
But I have never heard any atheist, in real life, in the old media or on the interbutts, who has said "there can't possibly be a God". All of them agree that the chance of there being a God is lower than the chance of there not being a God, but I've heard none say what you just said.
Clearly, we live in different worlds.
The creation story in the Bible is honestly like any other creation story. It attempts to give an explanation of why things are the way they are. It might be largely fictional, especially in the time it took to do certain things. Biblical scholars agree with a large degree of certainty that Moses commissioned Genesis to be written along with the remainder of the Pentateuch. It was all oral tradition passed down in a father-to-son manner. I'm not sure anything can be taken as 100% fact until the story of Abraham. This includes Eden, the Great Flood, and the Tower of Babel. These stories were either made up to fill in a gap of history or composed of some half-truths of what really happened as a way to explain how it all went down.
I'm fairly sure that nothing before Abraham is true, except for things that might be true purely by co-incidence. Most of the stuff after Abraham is false too. It's interesting that the other literate cultures in the Middle East don't mention the huge, historic events that are mentioned in the Bible. The Egyptians, for example, say nothing about any conflict with the Jews, and Israeli archaeologists have found no evidence for the exodus.
How could you explain to a bunch of mentally underdeveloped proto-humans that their planets took billions of years to form and for them to evolve into what they are today. They have no concept of "billions" of anything nor evolution. The story of creation basically glosses over all that and just says "God made it in six days".
Was the order in which things were created also too hard for these people to understand? Genesis seems to imply that the Earth is older than the sun and that there were birds before land animals.
Evolution without a guiding force has some HUGE problems with it.
I don't see any problems with it at all.
However, I've noticed that a lot of creationists, no matter how intelligent or well-educated, seem to have very little knowledge about evolution and seem to believe that the theory of evolution states things that it absolutely does not state. I therefore can't help but wonder how many people are wilfully ignorant of the theory.
The Great Flood likely did occur.
Indeed it did. One occurred in Japan a few months ago, and in south-east Asia a few years ago. Many must have occurred in the eastern Mediterranean or in areas whose myths would have influenced the Jews. If you're thinking of saying that the kind of tsunamis we see today are not of the same order of magnitude, try to think of how the Japanese tsunami would have seemed to an ancient, primitive people who thought the Earth was the size of Belgium. Then imagine how this story would have been elaborated over time. They'd report the story as if the entire world had been flooded.
Since catastrophic tsunamis are so common, it's no surprise that myths of this kind should exist in many cultures.
So why are there different languages? It may have been possible that there once was one language that all men spoke and they've deviated over time. It's more likely that men developed over a wide area of the Earth and just began creating their own languages isolated from each other.
This is a very well studied topic. There's a whole field dedicated to it. I happen to find philology very interesting. However, in philology, the idea that all languages came from the same source is actually quite controversial. It's perfectly possible that complex language arose after humans split off from each other.
Can you honestly say you know EVERYTHING about science and evolution?
No, but I don't need to. I know enough for me to be confident that they offer a much better explanation of the world than any religious text does.
Can you explain how gravity works? Maybe you can, many cannot. There are plenty of atheists that know next to nothing about their world-view as well.
This is true, but trivial. Many people believe true things for the wrong reasons.
And the fact that many atheists don't know their shit doesn't let Christians or Muslims or Scientologists off the hook. It's merely a tu quoque.
Annnnnd Christians have far less to learn than we do. They only need one book. It's not a fair comparison! >:(
I see this statement as a contradiction. If you think the Bible was written by "fallible humans" (some of it is), then why advocate looking at other literature, written by a different set of fallible humans, as a different moral guide?
Because other literature admits to being written by fallible humans, thus preventing people from saying that any or the views they choose to adopt are in fact the will of God.
There is also plenty of literature that doesn't contradict itself, isn't the work of primitive people and doesn't show massive historical inaccuracies. All moral guides are fallible, but some more than others.
You'd have to ask the Council of Trent why they included what they did.
I've just sent them an email. They haven't replied yet, but I assume their answer will be that they included what was most politically convenient.
The Old Testament was compiled as a set of laws and history of the Chosen people before Christ came. After that it requires faith to believe that the New Testament is a faithful account of the teachings of Jesus and what the first century of Christianity looked like.
It requires not so much faith as double-think.
There is a large amount of evidence to prove that there WAS a rabbi named Jesus (other than the shroud of Turin). That's as far as fact can take you. The rest is faith almost in the way that you have faith that the Earth will continue to revolve around the sun. You have no control over that and you just accept that it will continue happening.
For the Earth to stop revolving around the Sun in the near future would require either an unexpected cataclysmic event, and we have no evidence that one of those is going to happen, or a complete contradiction of everything we know about stars and Newton's first law of motion. It therefore seems to me that believing that the Earth will continue to revolve around the Sun, at least for as long as we are alive, is a very well-grounded belief.
To believe the Gospels means believing a set of miracles, most of which were present in other myths that were popular in that region at that time, and a set of books that not only contradict independent sources (there was no King Herod alive at that time, and if there were, it seems unlikely that no Roman historian would have cared to remark that he killed every newborn baby in Judea), but even contradict each other, and were written 100 years after the events they describe. It also requires believing in the wandering Jew (has anyone found him? He must be tired by now), since Jesus said he'd come back during the lifetime of at least one person present.
To compare believing in all of that to believing that the Earth will continue to revolve around the sun is somewhat questionable.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_the_Great
I think you will find he did exist.
And I really don't understand why this is a thread based on Christian fundamentalists when they are the least of the religious problems in the UK and europe at the moment.
As I said before, God exists because the alternative explanations for the universe existing can be every bit as fantastic.
Sigh.
Edited to remain civil.
-Bosola
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_the_Great
I think you will find he did exist. Yes a lot of the bible is fiction but you should do your research before you think you know everything.
I love how you try to take every opportunity to take me down a peg. I also love how your seething hatred causes you to be overeager and make mistakes.
I didn't say that Herod didn't exist, I said he wasn't alive at that time. It looks like he died ever so slightly too early. If he was still alive, he was in his last years and knew it; some Jewish kid from a tiny village somewhere trying to usurp him wouldn't have been a concern since he'd have known that he'd be dead before the child was able to talk.
There is certainly no record of him ordering the mass murder of babies.
As I said before, God exists because the alternative explanations for the universe existing can be every bit as fantastic. You don't know. I don't know. You think you know enough to make an informed opinion but you don't. End of.
Wait, now you believe in God?
So that's why you were so vexed about my suggestion that humans might one day know how the universe was created! God lives in the gaps, so when we know everything, he disappears.
And I really don't understand why this is a thread based on Christian fundamentalists when they are the least of the religious problems in the UK and europe at the moment.
It's because the programme in question was about Christians.
Anyway, I made this thread because I was surprised that such people existed in such numbers. We all know that there are insane Muslims all over Britain; that isn't news to anyone. But it comes as a shock to many that a significant number of insane Christians exist.
Sigh.
Edited to remain civil.
-Bosola
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Faith in the Bible - No
Faith in God - Yes
Faith in man - No
Faith in morality (self) - Yes
Faith in morality (mankind) - No
etc.
etc.
It's hard for anyone to say "Christians this, and Christians that," just as it is hard to say Buddhists this, Muslims that, etc. For every human being, there is a unique religious belief. Yes, some beliefs resemble one another more than others, but there are likely as many differences between Christian X and Christian Y as there are between Christian X and Muslim X, or Muslim Y and Athiest X. They aren't the same differences of course, but they're certainly enough to prevent them from being considered the same.
You're practically denouncing all members of all religions, billions of people in one fell swoop. "Well, I'm fairly certain not one of these 4 billion people hold any reasonable beliefs."
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Will you two knock it off? I have better things to do than clean up this crap. Yes, we know the two of you don't like each other. Give it a rest.
admin edit: You are blue dammit, leave red alone.
Fine! I never wanted to be red anyway!
On a more pleasant note, I agree with Kudistos' objection to NFITC1 - very few atheists are as stubborn and arrogant as the ones he has in mind. Most of us keep ourselves to ourselves - but that's why you don't notice us.
In much the same way, the only Christians I've noticed are the aggressive evangelists, or those who keep telling me I'm going to go to hell for my lifestyle. I don't assume most Christians are nearly this nutty, though.
Also, on the matter of 'days' in the bible - the official Catholic position is that 'days' represent 'epochs'.
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Really?
I hear these stories a lot, especially from Americans: "an atheist said he was 100% certainly right and that there was no way that there could ever be anything that could be called God and then he tried to put me into a gas chamber".
But I have never heard any atheist, in real life, in the old media or on the interbutts, who has said "there can't possibly be a God". All of them agree that the chance of there being a God is lower than the chance of there not being a God, but I've heard none say what you just said.
Clearly, we live in different worlds.
I have never met an agnostic I didn’t like. And I think those are more like what you describe. “We will never be able to prove it, and it's highly unlikely” is their motto. But the professed atheists I’ve talked to are set on attempting to convert me, once they find out I am not an atheist. I find it as annoying as any other religious person trying to convert me. The ones I’ve met with just don’t want to accept that I don’t happen to believe what they believe.
But I’ll also state that I’ve met with a small sampling of atheists. I am sure there are ones out there not set on conversion. Just like how not all Christians are crazy fundamentalists. I just happen to have been unfortunate in the ones I’ve dealt with.
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More likely: you've encountered lots of atheists, but the ones who don't care about your religion haven't said much.
It's a simple principle. I only remember the people who zealously disagree with me, because they're the only ones who are going to raise my attention by making a fuss in the first place.
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Kudistos, I'm not going to ignore you, but you've written too many points for me to logically confront at the moment. I'll get back to you.
On a more pleasant note, I agree with Kudistos' objection to NFITC1 - very few atheists are as stubborn and arrogant as the ones he has in mind. Most of us keep ourselves to ourselves - but that's why you don't notice us.
I'm just going to say that I've met many people that I've mentioned. Even in their casual conversations sometimes they'll go off on why they think God can't exist. Not to say that ALL of them are like that (in actuality they might be in the minority), just the ones that are seem to band together.
In much the same way, the only Christians I've noticed are the aggressive evangelists, or those who keep telling me I'm going to go to hell for my lifestyle. I don't assume most Christians are nearly this nutty, though.
Thank you for not lumping all of us into that category. I disapprove of hell-bound evangelism as well. Christians are called to win people to the faith rather than scare them away from punishment (which, oddly, at the beginning of Acts is exactly what the first apostles did).
Also, on the matter of 'days' in the bible - the official Catholic position is that 'days' represent 'epochs'.
This is the only thing that makes sense. "Epochs" is one of those nice unquantifiable words that means as long as you want it to mean. I don't like that people still teach that it was literally days.
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Faith in morality (self) - Yes
Faith in morality (mankind) - No
(http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/919/ohyoubinladen.jpg)
You're practically denouncing all members of all religions, billions of people in one fell swoop. "Well, I'm fairly certain not one of these 4 billion people hold any reasonable beliefs."
No, no. I'm sure they hold some rational beliefs. Nearly all of them seem to agree that breathing air is useful, for example.
However, every single one of them holds unreasonable beliefs about the supernatural.
I have never met an agnostic I didn’t like.
I've met plenty.
Of course, I'm talking here about those self-professed agnostics who are unaware that agnosticism is an answer to a completely different question from theism and atheism and is therefore incompatible with neither. These people tend to adopt a very localised scepticism (they aren't agnostic about the tooth fairy) and confuse justified belief with blind faith.
If these people were consistent in their belief, they'd be Pyrrhonian sceptics, since they seem to assert that if one can't be 100% certain about something, one must be in a state of complete confusion. These people are usually first year philosophy students who think they're the world's greatest geniuses because they realised that we can't be completely certain about things.
(http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/4657/agnostics.gif)
Little do they know that they are nearly all atheists and that nearly all atheists are agnostics. Ho ho!
(http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/9595/agnosticismatheism.jpg)
There are very few members of the top right group.
And yes, I'm aware that the word "gnostic" usually means something else and that it isn't a commonly accepted word for the position contrary to agnosticism, but it's a useful way of illustrating the concept and I'm commandeering it.
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I have never met an agnostic I didn’t like.
nor have I, and I am one. Agnostic is the rational viewpoint when presented with such a lack of facts. Athiesm is slightly bigoted that it can simply say with almost absolute certainty what is and is not. (ALMOST I said). And religionists are the other way, often to the point where they believe fairy tales over logic.
Agnostics imho are the ones with a brain and real understanding because they have reached the conclusion that based on the available evidence there simply is no way to know or reach a conclusion. I have many ideas and theories, and I have an idea of which are likely or unlikely, but that's all they are... ideas. Science cannot answer the major questions, it just has ideas. So do I. So does everyone.
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Athiesm is slightly bigoted that it can simply say with almost absolute certainty what is and is not.
Please explain what's wrong with saying things with almost absolute certainty. I'm dying to hear it.
(ALMOST I said).
Don't worry. Unlike some people, I wouldn't wish to use such intellectually dishonest debating tactics.
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Please explain what's wrong with saying things with almost absolute certainty. I'm dying to hear it.
Because you can possibly be wrong in your statement, the almost being a margin for error ? If you ask me what's the color of the shirt of a person I've never seen, I'm not gonna say things like "it's blue", or "it's red". I'll just tell you that I don't know. It's the same if you asked me if a god exists : I'll tell you I don't know. I completely agree with DLPB here.
Also, this pic you posted (sorry for having to quote a pic, but it's hard not to in this case) :
(http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/4657/agnostics.gif)
is hardly clever. Being agnostic doesn't mean you're dumb, you know. I do know that apples grow on trees and that the Easter bunny doesn't exist. Doesn't keep me from saying that I don't know whether a god exists or not. The funny thing is, I was mostly agreeing with you until you brought up agnosticism :P So you can actually put me in the agnostic atheist category.
And the nice thing when you're an agnostic, is that you can be friend with both sides ^^ (if you can endure the fact that they'll try to convert you to their beliefs)
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Because you can possibly be wrong in your statement ?
That's where the "almost" comes into play.
If you ask me what's the color of the shirt of a person I've never seen, I'm not gonna say things like "it's blue", or "it's red". I'll just tell you that I don't know. It's the same if you asked me if a god exists : I'll tell you I don't know. I completely agree with DLPB here.
In that situation one could not say anything with any certainty. But that's not a comparable situation to anything we're talking about.
Being agnostic doesn't mean you're dumb, you know. I do know that apples grow on trees and that the Easter bunny doesn't exist.
How do you know that apples grow on trees? Can you disprove Descartes evil demon?
And how can you know the Easter Bunny doesn't exist? We all know that the Easter Bunny avoids being seen. Surely you're not saying that the fact that there is no evidence for the Easter Bunny and that the idea sounds silly is a reason to believe it doesn't exist? Because the same logic could be applied to God.
You can actually put me in the agnostic atheist category.
Then what is the problem? The picture is about people who would refuse to be put in the agnostic atheist category because they define themselves as superior to atheists.
BTW, I've noticed a pattern over the past few years
The self-proclaimed agnostics don't like the idea of degrees of certainty. To them, unless you can be 100% certain, then it's blind faith and you're an idiot and a faithhead for not sitting on the fence. They set up a false dichotomy between absolute certainty and useless guessing. There isn't; there's a continuum between very rational beliefs that are grounded in evidence and/or logic, and can be held with confidence, and completely idiotic positions of blind faith.
Most epistemologists today are giving some ground to scepticism. They admit that we can't have certainty. But they also say that we can have beliefs that are, to all intents and purposes, as good as knowledge. It's immature to throw a tantrum and say that if there's even the slightest possibility of being wrong, we should just say "I dunno lol" and adopt a position of complete bewilderment.
Actually, I've noticed something else, too.
A lot of agnostics assert the position that we can't know whether God exists with such certainty that it becomes a faith position. As I said to Seifer earlier, aren't you claiming to have knowledge if you say that we can't know something? After all, the implication is that you know that we can't know something. That's a claim to knowledge like any other. The most outspoken agnostics hold a faith-based position that we can't know certain things. It's hilariously ironic.
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That's where the "almost" comes into play.
So you're not an atheist ; you're an agnostic. An atheist is someone who is 100% certain that god doesn't exist.
In that situation one could not say anything with any certainty. But that's not a comparable situation to anything we're talking about.
Actually, it's a lot more comparable than you think.
And how can you know the Easter Bunny doesn't exist? We all know that the Easter Bunny avoids being seen. Surely you're not saying that the fact that there is no evidence for the Easter Bunny and that the idea sounds silly is a reason to believe it doesn't exist? Because the same logic could be applied to God.
With this logic of yours, you can also put the "YUO CAN'T KNOW!!1" cap on the theist and atheist regarding this question.
Once again, if you have "degrees of certainty", then you're also unsure about this fact and thus, also an agnostic.
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So you're not an atheist ; you're an agnostic. An atheist is someone who is 100% certain that god doesn't exist.
(http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/5564/maxtrolling.jpg)
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You said it yourself : even you admit you're not 100% certain god doesn't exist. So you're actually as much an agnostic atheist as I am.
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I've heard of being attacked for holding 1 belief or another, but seems kud has a real issue with people who don't commit to either position because they realise the evidence is way too lacking.
Maybe it is because agnostics are open minded and cannot be attacked as easily for a position, that some ultimately have an issue. Well that is tough. I find atheism closed minded, but nowhere near as ridiculous as religion. But I find both rigid and closed minded because they both claim to know best when they can't.
I can repeat that all day but agnostics have the best philosophy in this case, and that, is just a basic reality. Until we have a lot more evidence, no position is good enough. Good luck getting that evidence, because it exists outside of science. It created science in the first place.
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There cannot be any 'proof' for atheism, because you can only prove the existence of things, not their non-existence.
On this basis, the onus has to be on the theist to provide a convincing case for his deity.
If he cannot provide it, we must treat his absentee father figure the same way we treat Anubis, Moloch, Hephaestus or Baal - things which probably don't exist, and which aren't worth worrying about.
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You said it yourself : even you admit you're not 100% certain god doesn't exist. So you're actually as much an agnostic atheist as I am.
I am.
But you seem to be drawing a distinction between "atheists" and "agnostic atheists". Stop that. The distinction is between "agnostic atheists" and "gnostic atheists", who are subsets of the set of "atheists".
It really grinds my gears when people who make a big show of their agnosticism, people who falsely present it a middle ground between theism and atheism, redefine atheism and then attack the strawman they've just created. Not a single atheist I've ever heard would fit under your definition of atheist, so I'm going to dispute it.
And apart from anything else, you blatantly contradicted yourself. You called yourself an agnostic atheist (and thus, an atheist) and then said that atheists are people who are 100% certain that God doesn't exist. That's insane troll logic. If atheists are 100% certain that God doesn't exist, then there are no agnostic atheists. If there are agnostic atheists, then it is clearly false that atheists are people who are 100% certain that God exists.
Agnostic atheists are a subset of atheists and agnostic atheists are defined by not being 100% certain. This attribute of being 100% is mutually exclusive with the attribute that you claim atheists have. But a subset can not have attributes that are mutually exclusive with attributes of its superset.
I've heard of being attacked for holding 1 belief or another, but seems kud has a real issue with people who don't commit to either position because they realise the evidence is way too lacking.
Maybe it is because agnostics are open minded and cannot be attacked as easily for a position, that some ultimately have an issue. Well that is tough. I find atheism closed minded, but nowhere near as ridiculous as religion. But I find both rigid and closed minded because they both claim to know best when they can't.
I can repeat that all day but agnostics have the best philosophy in this case, and that, is just a basic reality. Until we have a lot more evidence, no position is good enough. Good luck getting that evidence, because it exists outside of science. It created science in the first place.
2+2=4
Watch this, I'm gonna make Seifer try to argue that 2+2=5 just so that he can disagree with me!
There cannot be any 'proof' for atheism, because you can only prove the existence of things, not their non-existence.
On this basis, the onus has to be on the theist to provide a convincing case for his deity.
If he cannot provide it, we must treat his absentee father figure the same way we treat Anubis, Moloch, Hephaestus or Baal - things which probably don't exist, and which aren't worth worrying about.
Exactly.
But try telling that to the people who are de facto atheists but still, because of the culture they grew up in, give a special privilege to the Abrahamic invisible sky magician.
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Wait...so I'm Osama Bin Laden? Excellent point KM
You say they hold no reasonable beliefs about the Supernatural - are you implying that there are reasonable beliefs about the supernatural OTHER than claiming there is no such thing? I think I heard a story about you somewhere...what was it...oh yeah you were watching shadows in a cave with some friends.
(http://home.comcast.net/~bhafer/images/cave.gif) - for my own amusement
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You say they hold no reasonable beliefs about the Supernatural - are you implying that there are reasonable beliefs about the supernatural OTHER than claiming there is no such thing?
Nope.
I think I heard a story about you somewhere...what was it...oh yeah you were watching shadows in a cave with some friends.
Nice to see than Hermoor has an intellectual protégé
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2+2=4
Watch this, I'm gonna make Seifer try to argue that 2+2=5 just so that he can disagree with me!
No baiting.
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It's a matter of definition, really. Does god exist ?
The theist says "yes", the atheist says "no", and the agnostic says "with the information available, I can't know for sure". There are no degrees of certainty in the theist and the atheist's answers, as they're absolutely sure.
So of course, with this definition in mind (the right one, AFAIK), there are fewer atheists than you'd think.
Anyways, I posted in this thread because your definition of atheist and agnostic isn't the same as mine, not that I was disagreeing with you. You can call me an atheist for all I care. And you'd be nice not to call me a troll when I'm clearly not.
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It's a matter of definition, really. Does god exist ?
The theist says "yes", the atheist says "no", and the agnostic says "with the information available, I can't know for sure"
lrn2 informal language. As a rule, people don't say things like "I think x is overwhelmingly likely, but there remains a possibility that not x". They say "x is true".* Just think about how unnatural "with the information available, I can't know for sure" sounds. Does anyone speak like that? Would you say "I'm planning to go shopping today, but there remains a possibility that I might be killed, so I can't be sure"? No, at least I hope not. Most people would say "I'm going shopping today". When an atheist says "God doesn't exist", he means "I consider the possibility of the existence of a god to be so remote that it might as well be zero, and will live my life as if no god existed". The second sentence is very unnatural-sounding and very long winded, so the first phrase is used in its place. Everyone, with the exception of a small minority of pedants, knows what he means. People need to learn that in normal conversation, remote possibilities are usually ignored unless there's a good reason to do otherwise. The remote possibility can be safely ignored because most people will understand that the person speaking knows that the remote possibility exists. The remote possibility is ignored since it's impractical to always take into account all remote possibilities.
This is why I compare your type of agnostic to the Pyrrhonian sceptic. Pyrrho was so obsessed with the fact that he couldn't know anything for certain that he couldn't live his life. He couldn't be certain that he needed to eat to survive. He couldn't be certain that he wouldn't die if he walked off a cliff. Legend has it that he needed to be looked after by others because his scepticism was so debilitating. Living a normal life and having a normal conversation requires assuming things are certain when they are actually just nearly certain. For some reason, there are a group of people who live normally, but apply this kind of debilitating scepticism when it comes to questions about the existence of a god. Perhaps they know that they wouldn't be able to live or communicate normally if they approached every question in life in the same way they approach the question of whether God exists.
this definition in mind (the right one, AFAIK)
This isn't the definition that any atheist uses. The only people who use this definition are people making strawman arguments.
And you'd be nice not to call me a troll when I'm clearly not.
When you define an atheist as someone who claims 100% certainty, calling you a troll is an act of kindness.
*This brings up another pet peeve of mine, which isn't related to this thread. Very often, people will say "x is better than y" about something that is a matter of opinion. And very often, some autist will respond to this by saying "that's just a matter of opinion! x can't be objectively better than y!", as if the first person was unaware of this. The second person thinks he is very clever but is, of course, an idiot. He has apparently not noticed the fact that saying "in my opinion" before stating an opinion is very unnatural and makes one sound as if one lacks the courage of one's convictions and is apologising for having any opinion at all. He has failed to realise that where something is obviously a matter of opinion, normal people use phrases like "x is better than y" because, in the context, it is understood that they are referring to their opinion. Only someone with very poor knowledge of human communication would assume that people saying things like this actually thought that their opinion was an objective fact.
In the same way, when someone says "God doesn't exist", I understand them as meaning that they deem the existence of God to be very unlikely. In the context, it's safe to assume that this is what the person actually means. The chances that the person is discounting a remote possibility for the purposes of practicality are far greater than the chances that he is claiming to be 100% certain.
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Let's avoid calling each other 'trolls'. I'm sure no-one sincerely believes anyone here is being deliberately disruptive, but it is something of an inflammatory phrase. Let's stick to insulting peoples' arguments, rather than those persons themselves.
--
Now,
This brings up another pet peeve of mine, which isn't related to this thread. Very often, people will say "x is better than y" about something that is a matter of opinion. And very often, some autist will respond to this by saying "that's just a matter of opinion! x can't be objectively better than y!", as if the first person was unaware of this.
This is a real bugbear of mine.
It's always the same -
Alice: X
Bob: Y
Alice: THAT'S JUST YOUR SUBJECTIVE OPINION STOP OPPRESSING ME YOU NAZI!!!11ELEVENTEEN!!1
Honestly. Why is it that, unless you choke your prose with weasel words and countless parenthetical 'in only my exceedingly humble opinion which you are free to ignore...' statements, you're some sort of evil fascist who'd happily send any dissenter to the gas chamber?
Not only are all these apologetic caveats unnecessary, they make for poor prose, too. Compare:
It might be argued by some, with varying degrees of vigour, that Joseph Stalin, by performing what was perhaps a purge against (arguably) the most capable members of his armed forces, perhaps damaged the Soviet Union's capacity to defend itself in certain ways to a degree, possibly even significantly, although others have made other claims at various points in time.
with
By purging talented officers from his army, Stalin crippled Soviet defences.
Which would you rather read? Which one can you read?
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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism
This can't seriously be what is being debated?
I can't be bothered to read this whole thing, but please, someone tell me I'm wrong.
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He has apparently not noticed the fact that saying "in my opinion" before stating an opinion is very unnatural and makes one sound as if one lacks the courage of one's convictions and is apologising for having any opinion at all.
Aww, is that really what it sounds like? I say that all the time :(
Guess I should cut that out...
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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism
According to KM, the lexicographer who wrote this is a troll. Oh no, wait, it's the one who wrote the definition of agnostic. In fact, still according to KM, agnostics don't exist. There are only theists and atheists out there.
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It's always the same -
Alice: X
Bob: Y
Alice: THAT'S JUST YOUR SUBJECTIVE OPINION STOP OPPRESSING ME YOU NAZI!!!11ELEVENTEEN!!1
Honestly. Why is it that, unless you choke your prose with weasel words and countless parenthetical 'in only my exceedingly humble opinion which you are free to ignore...' statements, you're some sort of evil fascist who'd happily send any dissenter to the gas chamber?
Not only are all these apologetic caveats unnecessary, they make for poor prose, too. Compare:
It might be argued by some, with varying degrees of vigour, that Joseph Stalin, by performing what was perhaps a purge against (arguably) the most capable members of his armed forces, perhaps damaged the Soviet Union's capacity to defend itself in certain ways to a degree, possibly even significantly, although others have made other claims at various points in time.
with
By purging talented officers from his army, Stalin crippled Soviet defences.
Which would you rather read? Which one can you read?
Nice to see that at least one person agrees with me.
What a lot of people fail to take into account is that normal communication requires making a lot of assumptions. For the sake of practicality, we usually adopt a style more like the latter example than the former; we assume that our audience will assume that the first paragraph about Stalin is what we actually meant, because we know that most people will give us the benefit of the doubt and assume that we aren't claiming to be absolutely certain about everything. If it seems odd that we would expect people to make such assumptions, think of it this way:
A person who says Mozart is better than Beethoven either (a) believes that Mozart is objectively better than Beethoven, or (b) understands that this is a matter of opinion and is not intending for his words to be taken literally. We are therefore forced to decide whether to use interpretation (a) or (b). If he is intelligent adult, he is highly unlikely to be unaware of the difference between facts and opinions, so (b) is much more likely than (a), and is therefore what most people would assume.
Those people who say things like "when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me" might do well to look at those two statements about Stalin and think about which one of them looks like it was written by an ass. Or better still, they could try living without making assumptions. Those of us who are sympathetic to David Hume might say that any statement about causality is an assumption, so people who are opposed to making assumptions may wish to walk into oncoming traffic. Surely, they would not make the assumption that this would be fatal, based only on the fact that it has been fatal to a lot of other people who have tried it?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism
This can't seriously be what is being debated?
I can't be bothered to read this whole thing, but please, someone tell me I'm wrong.
No, that really is what is being debated.
I see nothing in that definition about 100% certainty.
Let's avoid calling each other 'trolls'. I'm sure no-one sincerely believes anyone here is being deliberately disruptive, but it is something of an inflammatory phrase. Let's stick to insulting peoples' arguments, rather than those persons themselves.
There are certain situations in which calling someone a troll is less insulting than assuming that they actually meant what they said.
Aww, is that really what it sounds like? I say that all the time :(
Guess I should cut that out...
Yes, you should.
According to KM, the lexicographer who wrote this is a troll.
See my response to obesebear.
In fact, still according to KM, agnostics don't exist. There are only theists and atheists out there.
If you actually believe that (and have completely forgotten about that little chart I posted), then I shall waste no more time arguing with you, since it is clear that we are unable to communicate.
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I might go shopping today, unless I need to do something else.
By removing capable members of his armed forces, Stalin damaged the Soviet Union's capacity to defend itself.
I'm not trying to antagonize anyone, but I'm not sure speaking in absolutes is any better than packing sentences full of modifiers. There are pure opinions, and then there are opinions that have been formed based on other information, including facts.
The first sentence of many answers is often, "It depends..." Look at all the reality TV shows, they are objectively rating Singers, Cooks, Designers, etc. even though their products are Song, Food, and Aesthetics. That may not make any of the judges 'right' or 'wrong' but people can make an objective arguement that Mozart is better than Beethoven.
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Wow, this thread got crazy again.
I've found a flaw in your argument.
It's true that people have harmed others as a result of their religious belief. Maybe I should have included that acknowledgement in my first post. The question is, how is this different from many other tendencies? If there is no difference, then is religion really the problem? There's likely a flaw in this parallel, but haven't been able to find it yet.
Observing the observable when talking about a higher power is like trying to learn about the Sun by studying the Moon. You can learn about the sun this way, but it is not the same as studying the sun itself.
But I thought higher powers were by definition not directly observable.
Religious belief operated independently of genetics (although people with certain genetic profiles are more or less likely to be believers or nonbelievers just as some are more likely to be gamblers). The very nature of religion and spirituality, is something I believe is influenced by genetics and environment, but not dependent on genes or upbringing. I’d be interested in knowing specifically what studied you are referring to (are these articles peer-reviewed? Are there any potentially confounding variables?).
I was under the impression that it's rather common knowledge that people are strongly inclined to supernatural/superstitious/religious ideas, especially given the wide acceptance of such beliefs throughout history and cultures. I assumed there had been plenty of scientific study on the topic, such as this article (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6823229.ece) (including the scientist's helpful follow-up (http://brucemhood.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/i-never-said/)). Even Dawkins thinks it's a reasonable idea: "I am thoroughly happy with believing that children are predisposed to believe in invisible gods" (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1136482/Brains-hardwired-believe-God-imaginary-friends.html). But if that assumption is wrong, then it would be good to know.
Many natural tendencies for behavior DO hurt people. If everyone followed their natural tendencies, I imagine the world would be a very dangerous and dreadful place.
Indeed, hence why people add the disclaimer "so long as it doesn't hurt others."
Thanks for your methodical answer. That's the kind of insight I was hoping for.
Now a new question for anyone with thoughtful replies. I've seen people espouse the idea of "moral axioms", and that moral systems can be built off those axioms and remain internally consistent. Since it's pretty hard to objectively define moral absolutes, having an internally consistent system may be the best you could get. Now organized religions receive a lot of criticism from people seeing internal inconsistencies in those beliefs. My question is, could those criticisms be seen as a "shell game"? I mean, it's really easy to criticize religions because their moral systems are actually published and known. On the other hand, it doesn't seem like those criticizing stand behind any well documented moral system that is open to good analysis. Is there perhaps some published, non-religious moral system out there that I am unaware of? Or does it even matter?
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@m35
That was exactly my point, the "higher powers" so-to-speak, are not directly observable - I guess the way I said this in my head, isn't what it translated to in text.
People are inclined to ideas which explain that which they do not have the answer to. That's one of the reasons why in the past, everyone flocked towards supernatural and religious ideas, and in modern times people seem to recognize science as a suitable explanation. I'm speaking matter of factly, but as you know, these are only my own observations/beliefs. Although the evolutionary perspective on this topic may hold water.
Something that should be considered when dicussing any moral system, is that regardless of the rules of that system, living in an environment where you are exposed to that system, can influence one's beliefs. A an individual may claim to follow a certain moral philosophy, but you could easily find someone else claiming to follow the same system, and have different ideas about right and wrong. Also, if you are immersed in one of these systems, it is likely that you don't apply the rules indiscriminantly; of course there are those that do, but I would hesitate to say they are practicing true morality. For the most part, I am something of a Rule Utilitarian, but I'm no purist. I think that the "it depends" and the qualifiers of life are just as important as anything else when it comes to moral judgements.
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I was under the impression that it's rather common knowledge that people are strongly inclined to supernatural/superstitious/religious ideas, especially given the wide acceptance of such beliefs throughout history and cultures. I assumed there had been plenty of scientific study on the topic, such as this article (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6823229.ece) (including the scientist's helpful follow-up (http://brucemhood.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/i-never-said/)). Even Dawkins thinks it's a reasonable idea: "I am thoroughly happy with believing that children are predisposed to believe in invisible gods" (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1136482/Brains-hardwired-believe-God-imaginary-friends.html). But if that assumption is wrong, then it would be good to know.
I don't understand the "even" part.
Or rather, I don't understand why the theory that humans are hard-wired to think religiously should be championed by theists and challenged by atheists. Surely it helps the atheist debate? After all, it explains away the ubiquity of religion, the strength of belief and also most religious experiences as a kind of pathology. As a misfiring. As an evolutionary throwback.
Actually, Dawkins himself does use this theory as an attack against religion in The God Delusion.
If nothing else, it allows us to use a good old-fashioned genetic fallacy: you only believe in God because humans are built that way.
At any rate, the idea that humans are hard-wired to think religiously is no more an argument in favour of religion, for the same reason that the fact we have trouble accepting that 0.9999... = 1 does not mean that 0.9999... =/= 1. Something does not become true just because we're hard-wired to believe it.
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you only believe in God because humans are built that way.
I agree. I think it is more than that though... The human mind is quick to brainwash and if you bring up a child with religion, then it is hard to break free from it (I was devout catholic for 10 years). The human mind is easy to corrupt and to brainwash.
But I would also agree that hope and religion served a purpose in our evolutionary development at one stage but now it has become a burden. The brain also seems to lack rational thought with a great number of people. Proof of this can be seen with ghost stories, alien abductions and the like.
Basically if the human brain is not educated it is just a blob of mush.
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In psychology thre are things called the Gambler's Fallacy and Irregular Reinforcement Schedules - they can explain many of the irrational beliefs.
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Basically if the human brain is not educated it is just a blob of mush.
agreed
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At any rate, the idea that humans are hard-wired to think religiously is no more an argument in favour of religion
Though I am not a believer of the christian god, I do believe we are hard wired to believe in something higher then ourselves. Any implant of the "idea" of god Jesus,Buddha,Allah,ect... Fill's that empty void we were hard wired with. Why is this not proof? We are hard wired to do so much automatically Mate,Love,Hate,Think,Survive,Covert Air,ect. All without any outside stimuli we automatically know these feeling.
Why not innately know that there are beings out there that may have crated this thing called a universe? My 2 pennies.
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Brainwashing occurs. But that doesn't mean each of us would not be happy in Brave New World. Perhaps we've been brainwashed to think that science is greater than the path to enlightenment :o
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Perhaps we've been brainwashed to think that science is greater than the path to enlightenment
I think this may be the case, Time and time again has proved that even if you remove all outside influences humans will develop a religion that fills the need, a need they have yet to explain.
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Though I am not a believer of the christian god, I do believe we are hard wired to believe in something higher then ourselves. Any implant of the "idea" of god Jesus,Buddha,Allah,ect... Fill's that empty void we were hard wired with. Why is this not proof? We are hard wired to do so much automatically Mate,Love,Hate,Think,Survive,Covert Air,ect. All without any outside stimuli we automatically know these feeling.
Why not innately know that there are beings out there that may have crated this thing called a universe? My 2 pennies.
this is essentially my point I made in the other topic on religion. My arguement however is that we should not pretent to know something that is unknowable at this point. We could easily function in a society that acknowledges the existence of higher beings, but why pretend like we know all about them? This is the key flaw of modern religions. They force people to go around babbling about such specific things they would never care to prove, and such an attitude is degrading towards the environment, the individual, and to the intellectual process. I mean if you actually study the major religions you come to find that the only real differences in the story are times, places and names. Essentially everything else is the same. Perfect example is how Christians think they are so unique but they are mostly and aboslutely oblivious to the fact that this idea of the 3 day ressurection that is the basis of the entire fath has existed as far back as early Egyptian religions. the exact same concept even on the exact same days of the year. Its a celebration of the soltice gone horribly and utterly wrong. They just cut and paste and steal from one another, and when that doesn't work they just blatently make something up. Then wage wars against each other based on this idiotcy. Its major hypocrisy, and downright lunacy to go practicing such simplistic and logically flawed methodologies when the light of sicence has begun to show solutions to all these problems that religions present as unsolveable.
In short, this planets existence in itself is a miracle and if we think that as a species, we have an infinite amount of time to dally around and kill one another for essentially no reason, we are sorely mistaken. Evolution has presented us with an opportunity, not a certainty. it is our own complacency that might end up undoing all that we have acomplished. I can only hope that someday soon, the powers that be will remove their own heads from within their rectal cavity and begin to function as rational individuals.
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this is essentially my point I made in the other topic on religion. My arguement however is that we should not pretent to know something that is unknowable at this point. We could easily function in a society that acknowledges the existence of higher beings
This is were we differ, there is nothing wrong with filling that void of "A Higher Power". Would you go without eating? sleeping? perhaps interacting with people at all? All of these things the body needs, some more then others. These are all human feelings there is nothing wrong with artificially filling that void at all. As long as it makes them happy.
Its like starving kids in africa... Wrapping a shirt around there stomach to fool there body to thinking they ate. Same scenario here... Believe in God X and fool the body...of sorts :/
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there is a problem, its called unecissary warfare, fane ingorance, and overpopulation. None of these are the direct result of religion. But religion has presented no real solution to any of these things. Science has, and with science your still allowed to believe in higher beings if you choose to. Essentially science is the evolution of religion in my opinion and we should go with the newer better idea and methodology. You can say that they are free to think what they will because nobody really knows anyway, but I have to agree with Socrates when I say that some things can have absolute forms of truth. Whereas the practice of old religions after new sciences have emerged are necissarily wrong IMO, because they lead to ignorance, and ignorance can lead to any kind of disgusting behavior or mind can possibly imagine. The developement of science is the absolute here, it is the right way to go. No need to cast aside our inner intuition. I believe in a higher power as well. kinda seems ignorant not to considering the size of the universe. but bad ideas will always be bad ideas, no matter how many people, or how long they are supported.
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There are religious beliefs, and the type of person someone is because of their beliefs. Based on most of the posts here, one would think that everyone who believes in a God is a psychotic serial killer. I have to say that in my own experience, I have met bigoted believers, but I've met more bigots that are just plain idiots...they are idiots independently of their religious beliefs. Overwhelmingly, the people that I've come into contact with that do hold religious beliefs are good people. Whether their beliefs are warranted or not, religion can be responsible for producing morally sound, good people (just as it can produce maniacs, but statistically speaking, they are in the minority). Many people here speak of science as if it is this awesome force of change, but wtf, 10 year olds with iPhones running around on Facebook, using the internet to ridicule homosexualss till they commit suicide is what I see technology doing to humans. I predict that the latest generation of humans is going to be more selfish and stupid than ever before (Directly because of technology).
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the reason why technology is doing that to humans is because all of the useful tech is kept at bay for monitary profit. There exist batteries that recharge themselves, there are methods of growing inorganic materials organically by manupulating virus and bacteria, there has existed a motor engine that gets over 120 miles per gallon for over 7 decades and before all of these big cities or highways even existed, there was the all powerful telsa coil, but all of these things are deliberately kept at bay for the sake of profit. Things like the iPhone are release however bevause IMO and for the most part they cause a pretty huge distraction and make it easier for the general populous to ignore the world around them. I know that religious people can be very kind, I grew up catholic, hated it, but became a christian, and was til I was about 15. i met a lot of good people, but they all had the same logical fallacies floating around in their heads which is what ultimately led me to form my beliefs for my very own. Logically fallacious thinking, in my own experience, leads to harm, whether it be economically, physically, cognitively or spiritually. Religion supports and nutures these illogical traditions. It should be cast aside for REAL science.
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(http://oi56.tinypic.com/2m5arrb.jpg)
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whatever what I'm saying is pretty common knowledge for anyone who pays a spec of attention
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7ZZAfZnvog
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Yarlson, to me that sounds like paranoid conspiracy theory to be honest....
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whatever what I'm saying is pretty common knowledge for anyone who pays a spec of attention
I don't think that breaking the first law of thermodynamics is common knowledge.
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I don't see how the concept of power corrupting is conspiracy theory. you know for a fact that its common knowledge, so why is it every time someone delves into the specifics of it, it is labeled some kind of conspiracy theory? I don't believe in the illumanati or any of that stupid stuff, mostly because there is no proof. I have said it many times, and I'll say it again, I base what I say on facts that can be weighed tested and proven.
dont believe that a battery can be grown just as a cabbage can be?
Watch this
http://www.ted.com/talks/angela_belcher_using_nature_to_grow_batteries.html
kudistos, you yourself were arguing in this very thread earlier that you believe that humanity will one day be able to answer all questions that are now designated as unknowable. You really think we will accomplish this without changing the way we understand things we thought we already knew?
its not even a conspiracy, at least not for the most part. just things that nobody takes seriously, if it was a conspiracy it would be a lot more organized and a lot less wasteful. Its just an utterly retarded rat race for something that has absolutely no real value (money) over all other things that actually have real useful value but are not used because money is deemed more important. In other words, it was a system that was designed by some of the stupidest greediest men who ever lived. Its not theory either, its fact, look up patents for any major car company for example, you'll find that a lot of them have filed patents for various battery technologies. In fact the most highly advanced battery technologies that exist. The reason why they do this is to ensure nobody else will be able to use them and they can still suck the general public dry with these continually rising gas prices and inefficient cars. And in regards to the tesla coil, it is also not a theory, he proved at the 1900 worlds fair that you could easily power anything you'd like wirelessly using a tesla coil. He powered the entire event with one. The latest Family Guy even has a pretty hilarious joke about it so I would assume that a fair amount of people know the story. Also you could check out TED talks and they will openly talk and explain a lot of advanced technologies that a lot of people remain oblivious to. Its more than just some paranoia I'm afraid. I am a college student and also a fairly popular guy, and these are issues that my whole campus is talking about.
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I don't see how the concept of power corrupting is conspiracy theory.
That's not what you're asserting. You're asserting that someone is suppressing technology for financial benefit.
dont believe that a battery can be grown just as a cabbage can be?
Watch this
http://www.ted.com/talks/angela_belcher_using_nature_to_grow_batteries.html
And can she do it in a way that's economically viable? That won't cost more to produce than we'll save by using it? Because unless she can, there's a good reason why these things haven;t taken off, and it's nothing to do with conspiracies.
kudistos, you yourself were arguing in this very thread earlier that you believe that humanity will one day be able to answer all questions that are now designated as unknowable.
I do.
I just don't think that these discoveries were made by hicks in their garages in the 1970s and were suppressed by teh corporashunz.
I think these inventions are actually investor scams.
its not even a conspiracy, at least not for the most part. just things that nobody takes seriously
There's probably a good reason why they aren't taken seriously.
Its more than just some paranoia I'm afraid. I am a college student and also a fairly popular guy, and these are issues that my whole campus is talking about.
Which university's campus?
All of this sounds like stuff that's very convincing to laymen but that people who know what they're talking about know are nonsense.
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That video about growing a virus to create different things is nothing short of awesome.
Related note: I'm working on my HHO generator. Once I get it installed safely into my car I'll let you guys know how it goes.
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That's not what you're asserting. You're asserting that someone is suppressing technology for financial benefit.
yes that is what I am asserting, because its true and is the way in which power corrupts in the modern age at least to a certain degree. I already told you how you yourself could find out. Check the patent office if you don't believe me. Also do some research on high MPH engine's you"ll come to find that there have existed for quite some time, engines which consume about 500% less gasoline than the standard model most cars use today, these aren't hybrids either. Also, remember that the first car ever made ran on water and vinegar so there is no arguing that since day one there has been a better source than fossil fuel.
As for my knowledge on tesla, I am double majoring in computer science and electrical engineering, if you don't want to believe what I have to say about him then don't. But he's the reason why I want to be an electrical engineer in the first place and I have spent a considerable number of years researching his discoveries. It wasn't easy finding the complete truth about him and there are still many holes in his history. Why? Well you can at least do some simple research and find that after the year 1906, the year they decided to cancel construction of a tesla coil on long island, a partially completed coil that still stands today, almost all record of Tesla and his work goes unmentioned. Meaning nothing substantial is recorded in text books, science journals, newspapers etc. about Tesla and any of his work for literally decades to come after the year 1906, and all patents for the 40 some inventions made by Tesla were given to Thomas Edison some time after 1910.
Why? Because Edison was the first person tesla worked for when he came to this country. The only exception was the tesla coil which JP Morgan itself held the patent to for some time. Find that hard to believe? Do some research, after his exile Tesla spent the rest of his years right here where I am right now, Colorado Springs, he put the entire city into multiple blackouts on several occasions while experimenting for about 4 decades into perfecting his coil technology. His lab is still here and the coil that he sent an electric current across the entire planet with still stands to this day. I have had the priveledge of visiting his lab before. He kept working in exile until his ultimate death. Clearly someone, somewhere, covered up Tesla's life and work deliberately for the sake of profiting off of fossil fiel. This much is clear, whether it was a mass conspiracy or just a greedy family is up in the air, but I put my money on the later.
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yes that is what I am asserting, because its true and is the way in which power corrupts in the modern age at least to a certain degree. I already told you how you yourself could find out. Check the patent office if you don't believe me. Also do some research on high MPH engine's you"ll come to find that there have existed for quite some time, engines which consume about %500 less gasoline than the standard model most cars use today, these aren't hybrids either. Also, remember that the first car ever made ran on water and vinegar so there is no arguing that since day one there has been a better source than fossil fuel. As for my knowledge on tesla, I am double majoring in computer science and electrical engineering, if you don't want to believe what I have to say about him then don't. But he's the reason why I want to be an electrical engineer in the first place and I have spent a considerable number of years researching his discoveries. It wasn't easy finding the complete truth about him and there are still many holes in his history. Why? Well you can at least do some simple research and find that after the year 1906, the year they decided to cancel construction of a tesla coil on long island, a partially completed coil that still stands today, almost all record of Tesla and his work goes unmentioned. Meaning nothing substantial is recorded in text books, science journals, newspapers etc. about Tesla and any of his work for literally decades to come after the year 1906, and all patents for the 40 some inventions made by Tesla were given to Thomas Edison some time after 1910. Why? Because Edison was the first person tesla worked for when he came to this country. The only exception was the tesla coil which JP Morgan itself held the patent to for some time. Find that hard to believe? Do some research, after his exile Tesla spent the rest of his years right here where I am right now, Colorado Springs, he put the entire city into multiple blackouts on several occasions while experimenting for about 4 decades into perfecting his coil technology. His lab is still here and the coil that he sent an electric current across the entire planet with still stands to this day. He kept working in exile until his ultimate death. Clearly someone, somewhere, covered up Tesla's life and work deliberately for the sake of profiting off of fossil fiel. This much is clear, whether it was a conspiracy or just a greedy family is up in the air, but I put my money on the later.
Come on dude, use paragraphs.
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im sorry but its a bitch to type from a phone as it is.
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im sorry but its a bitch to type from a phone as it is.
Then don't.
Nothing on these forums is urgent, particularly in CU. Wait until you have access to something with a physical keyboard before you post.
Also, this problem illustrates why anyone who thinks tablets are currently capable of replacing actual computers should be shot. Or left to die of pancreatic cancer.
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im sorry but its a bitch to type from a phone as it is.
Does your phone not have a carriage return or something? I mean, honestly. I often type from a Blackberry, and I don't have any trouble.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13325845
Another reason you don't want 2 conflicting religions in the same place (take note politicians, you idiots). Especially a religion which outlaws the other and tells its supporters to rise up and take over.
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Does your phone not have a carriage return or something? I mean, honestly. I often type from a Blackberry, and I don't have any trouble.
thats not the problem. The problem is whenever I press return on my phones web browser this text box glitches out for some weird as reason and everything won't stop shaking til I refresh. Even if I wanted to continue typing blindly it will scroll me to the top over and over so I cant see. Don't know why.
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thats not the problem. The problem is whenever I press return on my phones web browser this text box glitches out for some weird as reason and everything won't stop shaking til I refresh. Even if I wanted to continue typing blindly it will scroll me to the top over and over so I cant see. Don't know why.
Is there a reason why you have to make posts using your phone?
Phones, even smartphones, aren't designed for this. You should be using a computer.
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well right now I can post from a computer because I am house sitting, but my main computer is fried and my backup comp is a laggy peice of crap so i have been using my phone with wifi for internet usage. anyway i broke my previous post into paragraphs just for the heck of it
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well right now I can post from a computer because I am house sitting, but my main computer is fried and my backup comp is a laggy peice of crap so i have been using my phone with wifi for internet usage. anyway i broke my previous post into paragraphs just for the heck of it
You should have bought a Mac.