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You're not very clear on the word 'it' here, so I'm going to assume you were referring to either irrational thought or ignorance. If you want people to remain ignorant, so be it. Jumping off a skyscraper and not believing in gravity doesn't help you, and neither does believing you can fly.
I don't think we can completely elliminate irrational thought, but I think its worth doing all we can to reduce it to as low a rate as possible. To me its as important a 'societal indicator' as literacy rate, crime rate, or political awareness, all of which can act on one another.
And yeah, I know I'm trying to play hockey on a baseball court. When a scientist becomes famous because of a theory he made and then another scientist tries to convince him that his theory is wrong, of course he won't want to believe it, but if the body of evidence is there and his experiments explain the observations better and have more predictive power than the first scientist, he may give up his belief. In effect, by discussing and hearing argument from the newer scientist, he has had the other's beliefs 'forced upon him.'
But these examples still don't get to the heart of the matter. My point I'm trying to defend is that very, very subtlely we all use the scientific method in our day-to-day lives because it's hard-wired into our brains, and whenever someone propose a radical alternative hypothesis (maybe the reason your car won't start is because you're completely and utterly out of gas!) you may be surprised.
Suddenly, however, if the hypothesis has to do with religion, everyone says someone is trying to force their beliefs on them. It's these pitiful attempts to avoid discourse and discussion that get to the heart of the matter. Many Christians (I don't say all) will just not argue and simply try to ignore any reasoning against god, or any evidence for any theory that may go against their beliefs.
Evolution goes against my creationist beliefs, so I'll just ignore the mountains of evidence supporting evolution. Gay people are obviously sinners who make a lifestyle choice and there is no chance that it's a biological condition. Abortions are always wrong because fetus's are cognizant and can feel pain like anyone, and mothers just need to deal with it and have their choice taken away. See how crazy this sounds?
But one of my favorite things is just that almost all Christians work under the assumption that God even exists in the first place. This postulate and axiom is completely unprovable under the scientific method, at the moment, but it is exactly as likely as the existance of fairies, Santa Claus etc. The null hypothesis is disbelief, not belief. You don't have to 'disprove' the existence of fairies, you have to prove that they do exist for someone to believe you. No, we've never said "There is no chance there is a god," like "there is no chance there are fairies."
If all of humanity worked under this 'I don't know' style of uncertainty, we wouldn't know about laws of physics, the predictive power of mathematics and statistics, electricity, pharmaceuticals and vaccines. We KNOW these things. They are proven enough that we live by them. We can hold a ball in front of us and say "this ball will fall to the ground," and drop it. If it doesn't fall then, it will be the first observed time this has ever happened, and Science will be in for some big changes. Just like we can say the ball will fall, we're merely saying "There are no fairies, and in the exact same way, there is no god."
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United States22883 Posts
By "it" I meant religion.
I'm not trying to remove discourse. If someone wants to have a logical debate, then by all means you should point to the inadequacies in their argument. But what can you possibly do when they say they've felt it? Tell them they're just making it up and infuriate them? You're only making it less likely that they'll try to see your view if you do this. That's why being hard line about it is a mistake. It may be satisfying to be right, but it's detrimental to your cause.
The best I can come up with is Clifford's argument, that making that irrational, "gut" decisions is an unethical way of thinking. Just as a ship captain would not set sail based on a gut feeling without having the proper evidence that his ship is capable for the voyage.
Just like we can say the ball will fall, we're merely saying "There are no fairies, and in the exact same way, there is no god."
Well, there's a difference. The scientific method is used to provide evidence, regarding God the best we can show at the moment is lack of evidence. It's subtle distinction.
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I like Jibba's posts in this thread: they show respect and lack of judgment. Kudos.
It really doesn't matter what we believe in, so long as we are compassionate towards each other.
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If it makes you feel any better, your posts show lack of judgment too. 
On December 11 2007 10:20 Jibba wrote:
But in a way, you're a fundamentalist non-believer. You're actively trying to force your beliefs upon other people. Logically, it's apparent that the existence of God or any religion for that matter cannot be proven but it can't be disproved either. Everyone, even the most righteous atheists like Dawkins and Harris, admit that God is possible thus I don't think you can enforce the fact that it's not possible.
I don't think anyone is trying to enforce that God is completely impossible, only that it's incredibly unlikely for most conceptions of the Christian God to be true, given what is apparent in history and reality.
Atheists don't try to inoculate the young from religion by dishonest means, but you can't say the same about the way religions generally work. They clearly use dishonest means to indoctrinate their members into believing claims that cannot be backed up, tested, or verified. Atheists simply want people to abstain from propagating beliefs that have no reason to stand up except that others spread them through dishonest trickery (primarily of children). So you see, both sides are not equally "forcing their beliefs on others" as you put it. Atheism is a lack of belief, almost always because the evidence is insufficient ("strong atheism" being a straw man if you ask me, to send us on a semantics ride).
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On December 11 2007 10:20 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +I'm not really interested in the God debate so much anymore, I rather destroy people's points of views when they are based on dogma all but the belief of a supernatural God. But in a way, you're a fundamentalist non-believer. You're actively trying to force your beliefs upon other people. Logically, it's apparent that the existence of God or any religion for that matter cannot be proven but it can't be disproved either. Everyone, even the most righteous atheists like Dawkins and Harris, admit that God is possible thus I don't think you can enforce the fact that it's not possible. The justification for doing so is that religion is a tremendous source of violence, but I think fundamentalism of any nature is, that is trying to enforce the way people think and what they think about. Granted, hardcore atheists are probably much less violent than hardcore religious people, because there is no ultimate consequence for them not being violent but it's a dangerous concept none the less. Keeping the church and government secular is a wholly different issue than telling ordinary people what to think. Again, I have no clue what the solution is.
I think you misunderstood, I said I love to argue about topics which are based on dogma with the exception of the existence of god. If you want to believe that there are souls on petri dishes and therefore you are against stem-cell research. I'm gonna have to own your argument.
Same with same sex marriage and adoption.
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buddhism is the religion of the future
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United States22883 Posts
On December 12 2007 02:53 Rev0lution wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2007 10:20 Jibba wrote:I'm not really interested in the God debate so much anymore, I rather destroy people's points of views when they are based on dogma all but the belief of a supernatural God. But in a way, you're a fundamentalist non-believer. You're actively trying to force your beliefs upon other people. Logically, it's apparent that the existence of God or any religion for that matter cannot be proven but it can't be disproved either. Everyone, even the most righteous atheists like Dawkins and Harris, admit that God is possible thus I don't think you can enforce the fact that it's not possible. The justification for doing so is that religion is a tremendous source of violence, but I think fundamentalism of any nature is, that is trying to enforce the way people think and what they think about. Granted, hardcore atheists are probably much less violent than hardcore religious people, because there is no ultimate consequence for them not being violent but it's a dangerous concept none the less. Keeping the church and government secular is a wholly different issue than telling ordinary people what to think. Again, I have no clue what the solution is. I think you misunderstood, I said I love to argue about topics which are based on dogma with the exception of the existence of god. If you want to believe that there are souls on petri dishes and therefore you are against stem-cell research. I'm gonna have to own your argument. Same with same sex marriage and adoption. Alright, well then you're arguing religion and I've got no problem with that. There's a difference between arguing religious beliefs and arguing the belief in God.
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
I was wondering when TL.net would finally argue if there was a god or not.. hopefully we can come to a conclusion!
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On December 12 2007 07:01 {88}iNcontroL wrote:
I was wondering when TL.net would finally argue if there was a god or not.. hopefully we can come to a conclusion!
This is the sort of behavior that got you banned.
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On December 12 2007 07:01 {88}iNcontroL wrote:
I was wondering when TL.net would finally argue if there was a god or not.. hopefully we can come to a conclusion!
We can agree to disagree ;d
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On December 11 2007 07:32 nA.Inky wrote:Meta, this isn't an issue I am especially well read on, but I do believe the problems you mention are more the result of Islamic fundamentalism than Islam itself. Any ideas, when taken to a great extreme, can be dangerous. Am I wrong in this particular case? I am open to the possibility, as I haven't read much about Islam in a long time. Still, I don't think muslims in most of the world are a threat. My feeling is that there are terrible examples of people from any background or ideology, but we can't generalize from them to everyone else. There are insane Christians, insane atheists, insane Muslims, insane capitalists, and insane socialists... You see? I won't pretend to be an expert on this subject though. You've read books on it and I have not. My World Religions class didn't make Islam out to be a problem at all, though. Personally, I don't fear Islam one bit. I am also one of those weird 9/11 conspiracy people, too, though. 
These kind of things discredit your arguments.
The second statement a bit less than the others, but if you've done ANY research AT ALL, you'll see that fundamental Islam is THE ONLY Islam.
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Maybe this list will help. A Posteriori Argument.
* Motion, i.e. the passing from power to act, as it takes place in the universe implies a first unmoved Mover (primum movens immobile), who is God; else we should postulate an infinite series of movers, which is inconceivable.
* For the same reason efficient causes, as we see them operating in this world, imply the existence of a First Cause that is uncaused, i.e. that possesses in itself the sufficient reason for its existence; and this is God.
* The fact that contingent beings exist, i.e. beings whose non-existence is recognized as possible, implies the existence of a necessary being, who is God.
* The graduated perfections of being actually existing in the universe can be understood only by comparison with an absolute standard that is also actual, i.e., an infinitely perfect Being such as God.
* The wonderful order or evidence of intelligent design which the universe exhibits implies the existence of a supramundane Designer, who is no other than God Himself.
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On December 12 2007 11:19 mel_ee wrote:
Maybe this list will help. A Posteriori Argument.
* Motion, i.e. the passing from power to act, as it takes place in the universe implies a first unmoved Mover (primum movens immobile), who is God; else we should postulate an infinite series of movers, which is inconceivable.
* For the same reason efficient causes, as we see them operating in this world, imply the existence of a First Cause that is uncaused, i.e. that possesses in itself the sufficient reason for its existence; and this is God.
* The fact that contingent beings exist, i.e. beings whose non-existence is recognized as possible, implies the existence of a necessary being, who is God.
* The graduated perfections of being actually existing in the universe can be understood only by comparison with an absolute standard that is also actual, i.e., an infinitely perfect Being such as God.
* The wonderful order or evidence of intelligent design which the universe exhibits implies the existence of a supramundane Designer, who is no other than God Himself.
A lot of this seems convoluted to me, but I'll try to provide an argument to the best of my ability.
As for the first point, it's talking about the motion of objects in the universe?
Motion with no acceleration requires no "mover", it just happens. Why should something that is moving with constant velocity need to stop if nothing is there to stop it? Motion with acceleration implies not a god, but a Force, which acted upon the object of motion. Whatever applied this force can be considered the "mover", but the object applies the same force upon the "mover". As such, there are indeed an infinite number of movers. physics 101 lzol
The second point is up in the air, I guess. It deals with the origin of the universe. I don't think there necesarrily needed to be a god to originate the universe, but that's opinion.
The third point has to do with consciousness. It's the nature of every living thing to avoid death, in general, and does that not mean that they are aware of it? In any case, this implies NOTHING about God.
The fourth point basically says because the universe is so vast and complex, only a "perfect"ly complex being can understand it. Who's to say we aren't as complex and "perfect" as the universe? Perhaps not at this moment in time, but someday, as our knowledge grows, we will understand every single aspect of the universe.
The fifth point is pure speculation at best
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=_= I dont know if im atheist or not, i live in a christian-based community, parents are christian..
i just dont like.. how christians live, you know?
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
On December 12 2007 07:13 Mindcrime wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2007 07:01 {88}iNcontroL wrote:
I was wondering when TL.net would finally argue if there was a god or not.. hopefully we can come to a conclusion! This is the sort of behavior that got you banned.
A. I havent been banned.
B. If you are referring to the "temp ban" you are completely wrong. Rekrul banned me for an inside joke of which was later revoked. You have no basis for this statement and are completely wrong anyways.
My "behavior" was a sarcastic comment in a relgion blog, OH NO!
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United States22883 Posts
On December 12 2007 13:20 Meta wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2007 11:19 mel_ee wrote:
Maybe this list will help. A Posteriori Argument.
* Motion, i.e. the passing from power to act, as it takes place in the universe implies a first unmoved Mover (primum movens immobile), who is God; else we should postulate an infinite series of movers, which is inconceivable.
* For the same reason efficient causes, as we see them operating in this world, imply the existence of a First Cause that is uncaused, i.e. that possesses in itself the sufficient reason for its existence; and this is God.
* The fact that contingent beings exist, i.e. beings whose non-existence is recognized as possible, implies the existence of a necessary being, who is God.
* The graduated perfections of being actually existing in the universe can be understood only by comparison with an absolute standard that is also actual, i.e., an infinitely perfect Being such as God.
* The wonderful order or evidence of intelligent design which the universe exhibits implies the existence of a supramundane Designer, who is no other than God Himself.
A lot of this seems convoluted to me, but I'll try to provide an argument to the best of my ability. As for the first point, it's talking about the motion of objects in the universe? Motion with no acceleration requires no "mover", it just happens. Why should something that is moving with constant velocity need to stop if nothing is there to stop it? Motion with acceleration implies not a god, but a Force, which acted upon the object of motion. Whatever applied this force can be considered the "mover", but the object applies the same force upon the "mover". As such, there are indeed an infinite number of movers. physics 101 lzol The second point is up in the air, I guess. It deals with the origin of the universe. I don't think there necesarrily needed to be a god to originate the universe, but that's opinion. The third point has to do with consciousness. It's the nature of every living thing to avoid death, in general, and does that not mean that they are aware of it? In any case, this implies NOTHING about God. The fourth point basically says because the universe is so vast and complex, only a "perfect"ly complex being can understand it. Who's to say we aren't as complex and "perfect" as the universe? Perhaps not at this moment in time, but someday, as our knowledge grows, we will understand every single aspect of the universe. The fifth point is pure speculation at best It's actually talking about creation rather than motion (although I guess they could be interchangeable.) The main premises are everything that exists is either self sufficient or dependent on something else for creation, and an infinite regression of dependent objects is impossible, and therefore there needs to exist a necessary, non-dependent creator to cause everything, who presumably has always existed.
The main criticism is on premise 2, that an infinite amount of dependent creators is impossible. You can sort that out for yourself.
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First of all, thank you for taking the time to give us this argument. Was this written from your memory or pasted from somewhere? I assume the latter because you didn't provide a source.
I will give you my honest response to the argument below, doing no research to try to address it. Hopefully this gives the below argument a good chance at convincing me, since I am going to face it in a completely vulnerable, "naked" state.
On December 12 2007 11:19 mel_ee wrote:
Maybe this list will help. A Posteriori Argument.
* Motion, i.e. the passing from power to act, as it takes place in the universe implies a first unmoved Mover (primum movens immobile), who is God; else we should postulate an infinite series of movers, which is inconceivable.
Do you believe this argument, and if not, why did you post it? This doesn't seem to follow to me, so I will be interested in your response. Acts could go on ad infinitum. If not, any one act could be the first one.
* For the same reason efficient causes, as we see them operating in this world, imply the existence of a First Cause that is uncaused, i.e. that possesses in itself the sufficient reason for its existence; and this is God.
This seems to have the same problem as the above.
* The fact that contingent beings exist, i.e. beings whose non-existence is recognized as possible, implies the existence of a necessary being, who is God.
I think this needs to be explained a little more. Something is missing here before I can really see why this is supposed to follow. How do contingent beings imply the existence of a necessary being? There seem to be other explanations for contingent beings (they seem to be always made by manipulating real things in our minds, for instance, like a golden mountain. gold + mountain = contingent being golden mountain).
* The graduated perfections of being actually existing in the universe can be understood only by comparison with an absolute standard that is also actual, i.e., an infinitely perfect Being such as God.
Again, I think I need more elaboration to know what you're talking about here. What are the graduated perfections of being. What's the evidence for them actually existing in the universe? And then why do we need a perfect being because those exist? This seems to have to do with the above proof, but both seem missing some details.
* The wonderful order or evidence of intelligent design which the universe exhibits implies the existence of a supramundane Designer, who is no other than God Himself.
One alternative explanation would be evolution (which is quite strong). Even if we had no theory of evolution, I do not think so-called evidence of design would imply a designer. Accidental cause of it all seems no more miraculous than a God designing it all.
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On December 12 2007 15:46 {88}iNcontroL wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2007 07:13 Mindcrime wrote:On December 12 2007 07:01 {88}iNcontroL wrote:
I was wondering when TL.net would finally argue if there was a god or not.. hopefully we can come to a conclusion! This is the sort of behavior that got you banned. A. I havent been banned. B. If you are referring to the "temp ban" you are completely wrong. Rekrul banned me for an inside joke of which was later revoked. You have no basis for this statement and are completely wrong anyways. My "behavior" was a sarcastic comment in a relgion blog, OH NO!
A. Did I saw you were given a permanent ban? No, I didn't. A temp ban is called a temp ban because it's a fucking temp ban
B. To quote Rekrul: "Sarcasm is okay but when you do it every day and make yourself sound like an annoying bitch: you get banned."
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When someone says, "I believe in God" i think..."ok and out of the thousands of gods created, which one do you believe in again?"
Many civilisations throughout time have their own collections of gods. If they haven't created their own, then they probably worship a batch that has been introduced to them by a different nation.
All of these gods have their own stories of how they came about, what they can do and such, and i rate all of these stories, just because the sheer amount of them, to be all on the same level, even as modern religions such as christianity. You might think a monkey king helping out a blue person is insane, but to me i rate that just as insane as jesus coming back to life. I'm not saying they are 100% false, but are just as likely to be wrong as each other, no matter how jazzed up it is.
I don't believe in God or gods. I think it's extremely childish when:
"so...how is it that God can create worlds and people?"
"he's omnipotent"
"and how did he create the universe?"
"he's omnipotent, he can do ANYTHING"
I just think it's not even an arguement worth being called an arguement. It's just being asked a question and pointing the question into a brick wall, which seems to be allowed many times.
That's not to say i don't believe in anything like that though. It's the same with people that are certain that there is no afterlife, no gods, no soul no nothing. If we don't exactly know how we got here or what the universe is, then i think it's pretty stupid to rule absolutely anything that you can't see as false.
That being said, you could use that to argue the case of God, but i believe that for endless amount of anything that is entwined with life, i think it's pretty stupid to limit that thing as to one entity such as God. It could be so much more than God (no matter how all powerful you say he is) or it could be so much less.
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United States22883 Posts
lugggy, he's combining the Cosmological argument with Intelligent Design mumbo jumbo.
The Cosmological argument is one of the oldest arguments for the existence of a "god", but it makes no distinction as to what type of god, besides an uncreated creator.
Then he makes a completely disjointed jump to a perfect God and a perfect, harmonious universe, neither of which has any place in the Cosmological argument but Intelligent Design supporters like to do it none the less. I have no idea if he actually believes in it, but if he does he'll point to some minute, but extremely complex coincidence and say the only explanation is that God designed it, even though in 50-100 years science will probably have the answer to it.
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EPT
