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On July 14 2008 05:47 BlackStar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2008 05:13 ilj.psa wrote:
There is Science that can be applied using the Scientific Method and Science that you can't (Theories) other than just assuming and this involves Faith, This is very very very very wrong. I can't stress it enough. You don't know what science is. Now I could try to explain it, but it would be a waste of time because it's such common knowledge you can find all over.
Basically I agree with you that science owns and there's essentially no place for religion, but you need to question why that's the case instead of just assuming it or calling it common knowledge - it's not.
I hate to give ammunition to the religious camps, but there are some things that in principle the scientific method might not be very good for. The scientific method depends on measuring repeatable things. This depends on an assumption/axiom of natural law -- that things are basically repeatable.
If there really was some genuine miracle that made no sense and couldn't be reproduced... science wouldn't be able to explain it. One guy would report his findings, then it'd get shot down in peer-review because nobody else could reproduce it or explain it.
Now, the observed fact that science has extraordinary predictive power (even if it's probabilistic under quantum theory) and lets us understand and control the world to an amazing degree is STRONG evidence for natural law. Like if the gajillions of calculations going on in your computer while you read TL.NET didn't all go right, your computer would crash or magically turn into a purple elephant... but this doesn't generally happen unless your RAM goes bad or you download the elephant virus or something.
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On July 14 2008 06:00 Fwmeh wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2008 05:09 DrainX wrote:On July 14 2008 04:42 heyoka wrote:
The emphasis the western world likes to place on rational thought is ridiculous when applied to social structure and theory. Humans are not rational beings and so trying to "fix" society with rational progressions rarely has positive effects. I highly disagree with his thinking of "superstitious belief" and how it impacts society - there is just as much good as bad, and a certain amount of public "thought viruses" are needed in order to keep a cohesive society. Traditional religious instutions exist to tie people together, whereas current science tends to pull them apart and ultimately results in disconnected society and skyrocketing rates of mental illness. In my country there are around 85% atheists/agnostics and it works perfectly fine. And even if religion made people happier, which I highly doubt (Wouldn't make me happier at least), that doesn't make it true. You made that number up, and provide no basis for it. I thought you represented the scientific side?
I didn't make it up. It has been quoted in every religion thread on TL since two years back. I also said "around" because it could have changed the last few months.
Of cause the number varies between difference polls and exactly how the questions are phrased etc. I cant find the study that the 85% figure came from right now but ill give you 80:
"Several studies have found Sweden to be one of the most secular countries in the world. According to Davie (1999), 80% of Swedes do not believe in God."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
My point was that the majority, basically everyone here except some old people and some people on the countryside don't even think about faith. They probably don't even call themselves atheists since religion is such a non issue here.
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On July 14 2008 06:10 BlackStar wrote:I can't blame him for getting his education in Burundi, if he did. Show nested quote +On July 14 2008 06:00 Fwmeh wrote:
You made that number up, and provide no basis for it. I thought you represented the scientific side?
Sweden is famous for that number. He didn't make it up.You just made up he made it up. I also remember 85%. But if it's actually off a bit it's because he misremembered. Of course you shouldn't trust his word if you think it's an absurd number. But I think it was a safe assumption on his part that people wouldn't dispute it. He mentioned it only to remember us.
You know that I live in sweden too? And since it is such a famous number, you will of course have no problem presenting the scientific article where that number is from, so that I can for myself judge the credibilty of the method used in obtaining that number?
And I really do not put words in his mouth, but if he really presented that number hoping that people wouldn't dispute it, wouldn't that be rather shady? Is that not exactly what his side would argue against? I'm sure that was not how he meant it, but still...
On topic. I think that Dawkins could do worse than to study the example of Edward O. Wilson, as a person who would much rather do things than fight over useless issues.
edit, to drainX. Please read that again more carefuly. In the Eurostat survey, 23% of Swedish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", whereas 53% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 23% that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force". As for the study that presented 80% as agnostic/atheist, the link doesn't have a reference anymore. Someone should report that.
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So your source says 77% instead of 85%... that's not really a material difference.
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the accuracy of that statistic has very little to do with DrainX's point.
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On July 14 2008 06:48 Polemarch wrote:
So your source says 77% instead of 85%... that's not really a material difference.
Read again.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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On July 14 2008 06:50 oneofthem wrote:
/popcorn
Welcome to the thread  and goodnight to everyone. Hope the thread hasn't derailed by the time I wake up.
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As for DrainX point, if I understood it, was that religion is not needed as an "opium of the people," presenting sweden, being a markedly secular country as support.
That, I agree 100% with. I'm sure that there can a healthy society with 0% religious people. I do not believe Dawkins will get us there.
And I do not think that 0% religious people would in itself make it a better place.
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If Dawkins is as extreme as atheists get, then I'd much rather deal with militant fundamental extremist atheism than the religious counterparts.
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On July 14 2008 07:00 Jyvblamo wrote:
If Dawkins is as extreme as atheists get, then I'd much rather deal with militant fundamental extremist atheism than the religious counterparts.
there are atheist terrorists, too 
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On July 14 2008 07:05 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2008 07:00 Jyvblamo wrote:
If Dawkins is as extreme as atheists get, then I'd much rather deal with militant fundamental extremist atheism than the religious counterparts. there are atheist terrorists, too
They usually don't do their acts in the name of disbelief though :D
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On July 14 2008 06:50 Fwmeh wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2008 06:48 Polemarch wrote:
So your source says 77% instead of 85%... that's not really a material difference. Read again.
We're probably just disagreeing over semantics. The standard definition is an atheist is the opposite of a theist... i.e. someone who doesn't believe in a God or Gods. They can still believe in some other superstitious mumbo-jumbo, although more hardcore atheists like Dawkins and others in this thread generally don't. There's probably a better word for that... but I can't think of it offhand.
Your source says 23% of Swedish people believe in a God. That means 77% don't, so are atheists. The 53% who don't believe in a God but some mysterious spirit/life-force are soft-core atheists. They'd probably also fall under "agnostics" the way most people use that word.
So your source says 77% of Swedes are atheists, which isn't very different from the original claim that 85% are atheists/agnostics.
I'm pretty pleasantly surprised at how high that number is though! Thanks for providing another source.
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Oh sweet another MyLostTemple thread.
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I think almost all atheists really are agnostics. Agnostic means you're an atheist as long as it is proven that a god exists.
Atheists are scientific-minded people, so if it could ever be proven that a higher being exists and this being is also pretty much exactly like a god described in our various religions, they would have to accept it.
But until such a being makes some kind of direct contact with us, which probably never happens (either because such a being doesn't exist or because such a being doesn't care about us), agnostics are basically atheists.
And even if we should meet a higher being, it's much more likely that it's simply a more advanced alien species from somewhere else, but nothing close to the Christian image of an omnipotent god. True omnipotence can't exist anyway ("can a god create a stone so heavy that he himself can't lift it?").
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The way Wikipedia has it, "atheism" is the general term for lack of a belief in a God or Gods, and things like agnosticism are subsets of it. You have weak and strong atheism, weak and strong agnosticism, theological noncognitivism, etc. as parts of atheism.
Thus, someone can be both an agnostic and an atheist, which would certainly seem to help clear up confusion over the terms.
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First hit from google gives 85% according to Zuckerman, 2005. And how did I have to be Swedish to remember that?
Also, agnosticism has little to do with the theism-atheism thing. You can be an agnostic atheist and an agnostic theist.
Also, many atheists don't identify themselves as atheists. They just answer they don't believe in god, which of course makes them fulfill the requirements. As always with surveys it matters how the question is asked.
Polemarch, let's say you are right. Then someone needs to make a topic: "BlackStar, please explain what science is." Then I, or someone else does. And then a mod can close the thread because there's nothing really to discuss.
there are atheist terrorists, too
At first I thought this was sarcastic. But then it hit me you may be mixing up an atheistic terrorist and a terrorist that is also an atheist. Of course atheism only prevents one from doing one thing: being a theist.
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On July 14 2008 07:30 0xDEADBEEF wrote:
I think almost all atheists really are agnostics. Agnostic means you're an atheist as long as it is proven that a god exists.
Atheists are scientific-minded people, so if it could ever be proven that a higher being exists and this being is also pretty much exactly like a god described in our various religions, they would have to accept it.
But until such a being makes some kind of direct contact with us, which probably never happens (either because such a being doesn't exist or because such a being doesn't care about us), agnostics are basically atheists.
And even if we should meet a higher being, it's much more likely that it's simply a more advanced alien species from somewhere else, but nothing close to the Christian image of an omnipotent god. True omnipotence can't exist anyway ("can a god create a stone so heavy that he himself can't lift it?").
I think that to be honest all athiests are agnostic otherwise they are more dogmatic than christains. At least christaisn can claim to have expeirenced something that is clearly out of this world, while athiest cannot produce on a logical, physical or personal level any evidence because your claiming there's a lack of evidence.
Now for the lvoely niave "can a god create a stone so heavy that he himself can't lift it?". I saulte you for trying but its completely void. Lets break the sentence down shall we: "can soemthing thats all powerfull and can lift any rock of any density create a rock of a density larger than it can lift." Well no, of course not, you have contradicted yourself. You start the sentence by using the noun god which implies an all-powerfull being and then you claim he isn't all powefull. You create an instance of soemthing more powerfull than him after saying he is the most powerfull, or something that breaks the previous statement.
heres a quote from another guy i found:
He CAN create the stone. It's just that he can lift it too. Through being omnipotent, he is capable of creating ANY stone. Through being omnipotent, he is also capable of lifting ANY stone. There cannot exist stones which he cannot lift. In order to make such a stone, he would first have to nullify his own omnipotence, at least in the field of stone-lifting. The key here is that God being able to lift the rock (or not, as the case may be) is NOT a property of the rock, it is a property of God. Rocks do not carry any mystical 'can't-be-lifted-by-God-ness' in them, they simply are what they are and whether or not God can lift them depends on God's lifting ability (which, if he is omnipotent, is infinite).
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Was thinking of making a thread like this of my own. Nice to see that someone beat me to it. Ill try to tread thru most of the posts. And ofc im Pro-Dawkins or whatever you want to call it.
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"The Enemies of Reason" focuses on superstitious belief and it's negative ramifications on society. Dawkins attacks astrology, spiritual consulting and other such methods which conflict with science.
i dont get it whats wrong with exploring other ways than science. Maybe science will hit a wall
at some point and seem useless. I guess they do get in conflicts but atm would science progress faster without astrology or spiritual consulting or religion?
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EPT
