It seemed a waste to spend hours writing these on facebook, for them to simply be lost in the annals of the internet, so here's a discussion I had recently - what do you guys think?
<guy1> agnosticism stresses the understanding that no one knows anything guaranteed, and we keep our minds open to the possibilities by refusing to commit either way until there is absolute validity.
<guy3> "refusing to commit either way until there is absolute validity" How do you decide there is enough validity to take a stance?
<guy1> Objective, empirical, verifiable, retestable evidence, and circumstances that everyone who witnesses can verify without a doubt. I'm not even sure myself. Agnostics even think we'll never know for certain, because of my shitty answer
<guy3> Those are the exact reasons I am an atheist. Religion and Faith fail all those.
<guy1> I have a reason I'm an atheist too. It's simply because I find the idea of a "loving" bearded deity bordering idiocy, and a complete waste of my intellect to even consider. It might be true, but until these ideas are proven to me I will refute them just as anyone should.
<me> I'm sure it's well-meaning and all, and no personal offense, I'm sorry to point this out <guy1>, but your philosophy doesn't logically pass it's own test. 1) "No one knows anything guaranteed" you hold this to be an absolute truth, and yet, according to your very definition, complete and absolute knowledge is impossible. 2) "We keep our minds open to possibilities by refusing to commit either way" well actually, you have a very strong commitment (to a heavily skewed sense of 'neutrality'), one could argue that this prevents your mind from being open. 3) "unless there is absolute validity" If 'no one knows anything guaranteed', in that framework it is impossible to get 'absolute validity'. 4) Evidence supposedly informs your faith commitment. Ok, what evidence do you have for agnosticism, does it pass it's own falsification test? I know people can be very afraid to enter the realm of 'absolute truth', they want to sound neutral and not like a dogmatically crazy person. But statements like "there is no absolute truth", "we cannot know anything with absolute certainty" are in themselves absolute truth/certainty claims, so are completely self-defeating. This is rather inconvenient, life-philosophy just got a lot more tricky (:
<guy1> I appreciate your comment, <me>. First, I'm not an agnostic, I was trying my best to explain their beliefs from what I have experienced about them. Second, I realized that it's a self-defeating statement. <guy2> has given great insight.
<guy2> If we had a positive evidence for a creator, then things change instantly. But forgoing that, it is rather unreasonable to assume there is a significant probability (say about 1 in 100000) that there is a creator. I do think it boils down to Sagan's maxim: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. For a creator, we would need much stronger evidence than we would require that UFO's are ETI!
<me> Thank you <guy1>. <guy2>, on "evidence" - Science and empiricism are great, but unfortunately, they fail to give us an understanding of many essential facets of life and consciousness, nice list here: (fun fact: I've met WLC, and Atkins wrote my textbooks) What frustrates me with people demanding 'evidence, proof' is that they're constructing an unfair test, trying to force metaphysical manifestation (of a God) to show up in physical experiments. Go figure you won't see it, your worldview is closed to it, your model is looking in the wrong place! There's got to be a way of being discerning and reasonable with this God stuff (a different topic entirely). But I find fault in the way most people today try and 'test' (rather 'invalidate') the existence of the supernatural. The way they do it is like sitting with your headphones and music on, and occasionally saying things ('reveal yourself!') to a man next to you (God). And when you do think he said something back (e.g. modern day miracles of emotional/physical healing), you ALWAYS dismiss it as background lyrics to the song (random chance, circumstantial flukes). Therefore, you could assume that he is silent, but if you've chosen to close yourself off so that you can't hear him, that's not a fair process or conclusion. It isn't balanced or fair (scientific?) to set up the system requiring him to make extraordinary efforts and break character just to communicate. Rather than a show-trial and false test, it would be better if people who are seeking a God to be honest, and open to it, but still reasonable and discerning (a very hard balance).
<guy3> "Rather than a show-trial and false test, it would be better if people who are seeking a God to be honest, and open to it, but still reasonable and discerning (a very hard balance)."
Oh, Bullshit. I spent years being open to it. Multiple religions and multiple philosophies always looking to find validation for my religious beliefs. This is the crappy reasoning of a person who seems to think that all atheist were never religious believers in their lives. I was and I sincerely believed for years constantly trying to find more gaps for the ever increasing lack of support for the proposition. You just have to believe to see is crapola. Big steaming piles of crapola, too.
<me> Well <guy3> I'm sorry you feel let down by the lack of support form the people around you. That really sucks, and, seeing how flawed we can be as humans, unfortunately it happens a lot. It's a very complicated issue, being discerning and reasonable, but at the same time being open. A robust and reliable worldview/religion is one that recognizes, and overcomes said human flaws (rather than impractically aspiring as if they don't exist). "You just have to believe to see" is a good example of people getting it wrong. The problem is, everyone has different individual struggles, but often, religious bodies are unrefined in their methods, or lack sufficient training or pastoral resources, to address things on a case by case basis. However that doesn't make it OK, to dogmatically tell the masses to accept-without-question a one-size-fits-all faith-template. It doesn't adequately address (or dignify) legitimate critiques and questions, and what's worse, it can seem unimpeachable "because God says so". What's the solution? If true faith is supernatural and transcendent of human flaws and limitations, let's not make ascent to God dependent on our less-than-God-like human attributes and faculties. If we base our ascent on something that's less-than-God (how much human faith/understanding we currently have) to reach God, lol we'll never get there, cuz it'll never be enough! IMO by definition you can't climb your way up to heaven - how could discrete finite acts of holiness (good acts/understanding) ever add up to an infinite level of perfection (God)? According to the definition of 'who God is', (btw all of this is ASSUMING there is such a thing as 'God', and that he is knowable etc. different topic), God is the top-dog of everything known and unknown, and humans are not. There's a reason God and humans are in different categories. So I'm sorry if you've been let down, but in a system of religion that makes coming to God a function of our own efforts, actions, and goodness, falling short will only ever be the result. Likewise, in replacing 'God' with 'Science', you've got EXACTLY the same problem - how good is good enough? If it were possible to climb to the absolute top of religious adherence or scientific knowledge, we wouldn't be humans, we'd be God, and if there's anything I know, I am certainly NOT God. So what is there to do?! Well, what if there was a system wherein we didn't have an impossible mountain to climb to reach God, but rather, God breaks that mortal-infinite divide, and comes down to our level and is feasibly approachable/attainable? Being 'good enough' isn't dependent on our actions, but on God's reaching out to us. Only catch: God remains God (rather than us becoming God), so following him means giving up everything else. Great ol' lose it all to gain it all.
EDIT:UPDATE
random guy "So I'm sorry if you've been let down, but in a system of religion that makes coming to God a function of our own efforts, actions, and goodness, falling short will only ever be the result."...........how convenient for the owner of the invisible dragon! Surprise!!!
<guy3> "Well <guy3> I'm sorry you feel let down by the lack of support form the people around you."
What? This is an incredible non sequitur. I said nothing about being let down by people. I said that years of religious pursuit yielded zero results which is to be expected since god/supernatural has zero actuality.
The rest of your post is just pseudo-intellectual metaphysics with no meaning.
Not posted because effort
<me> He doesn't understand that he was with silly people who made ascent to GOD dependent on their own works, so no surprise why he didn't manage to climb up to God (climbing that way is impossible by definition). He wasn't let down by God, but by people who were too dogmatic and didn't have the capacity to let his complaints breathe. He blames God for his shit experience (and thus induces God doesn't real), but I say his surrounding people/belief system was so flawed, ANY discerning person would eventually drop out of it. If you talk to any evangelical, this is a "Religion/ works" vs "Grace/ Faith" dichotomy. It gets a bit confusing, because evangelicals are Christians, but who tell people they're not 'religious', because they define 'religion' = 'that whole trying to please God and get to his level by our own works'. I'm trying to demonstrate how these systems,where we base our coming-to-God on human faculties which are unable to do so, is futile. Again, replace 'God' with 'science', and you have exactly the same system, where people try to be good-enough based on their intellectual ascent and their 'ability 2 science'. Thinking "if only I were Einstein/Feynman/Sagan, if I reached the top, then I'd be satisfied, then I'd be good enough". However, science is such a shit religion, because empiricism closes itself off to so many fundamental aspects of human existence/experience (see the youtube video as a list). So, with all it's flaws and contentious points, nevertheless the more enlightened flavors of Christianity have moved beyond a 'just believe' simplicity, and recognize that those systems, just like any other religion, are impossible to complete perfectly (and if you can't do it perfectly, you can't be with God, so there's no point). I've just dismissed all metaphysical philosophies as futile and impossible to complete. WHY NO 1 ASKY what my personal solution is? (Hint: acknowledge we can never work our way up, but by grace the Christian God comes down to us)
I always try to be as approachable and not heavy-handed as possible. Do you guys think there is I said that could alienate, disrespect, or make people feel uncomfortable? It's hard to anticipate that reaction, cuz it's certainly not intended - what you mean to say, and what people hear, are very separate things, and I would like to learn more about what people hear. It's actually a public discussion group, so if you want in, I can send you the link (:
I like your style, bro. I think Ravi Zacharias said it best when he said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that many of the antitheist questions raised against God cannot be used to disprove God, but rather to question His character. So, in effect, the belief vs. disbelief often comes down to a moral reasoning rather than an intellectual one.
it's simply because I find the idea of a "loving" bearded deity bordering idiocy, and a complete waste of my intellect to even consider.
You parrot arguments (made by known theologians) that have been repeatedly refuted throughout history and array them against friends ill-prepared to respond on the spot as if their inability to give you an answer acceptable to you is evidence of the validity of your belief.
There's not much to see here but yet another religion thread that is likely to go nowhere on TeamLiquid but the closed section along with all the other ones.
Whenever someone uses the term "absolute truth" I cringe very hard and know the conversation will be of a very low quality. As is the case, neither guy1, guy3 nor you had anything interesting to say and since neither party is obviously interested in learning from the other, all of you are completely barred from making any intellectual progress. Such is the internet.
I will say that I don't think agnostics are necessarily waiting for such a clear answer. They're open to the possibility that God may exist, even in the absence of proof, but maybe don't believe it personally.
Atheists are much stronger in categorically denying the existence of any deity. Unfortunately, they may be very dogmatic about their denial - possibly and ironically more dogmatic than most religious people may be about their own faith. Which leads to its own logical trap of being very intolerant of other beliefs and treating religious people as though they are suckers or stupid and drawing conclusions like guy3 did that religion is totally worthless and wrong.
On March 26 2014 16:09 Aylear wrote: You parrot arguments (made by known theologians) that have been repeatedly refuted throughout history and array them against friends ill-prepared to respond on the spot as if their inability to give you an answer acceptable to you is evidence of the validity of your belief.
There's not much to see here but yet another religion thread that is likely to go nowhere on TeamLiquid but the closed section along with all the other ones.
I don't see why they would be "ill-prepared" if they're replying on the internet and have ample time to look something up on google/wikipedia and then type out a somewhat plagiarized response.
Edit: Are guy1, guy2, guy3 single and if so, which ones are handsome and witty?
Such a boring discussion, why not love Satan and be cool like me. Even if he doesn't exist, you are still one of the hip kids. Win-Win
Organized religion is just another group activity, truth is not relevant, making sense even less so. God(s) doesn't even come off as that nice of a guy. It should be obvious that all that stuff is secondary. Personal faith is just another fancy, atheists still have their own fantasies. I doubt there are that many people who act and think logically 100% of time. In any case it doesn't matter as no groups fantasies should affect society in any way. At least you'd think so.
I always try to be as approachable and not heavy-handed as possible. Do you guys think there is I said that could alienate, disrespect, or make people feel uncomfortable?
You've prevented the discussion from becoming intellectually challenging by abusing other people's shortcomings in defining a view not their own, by mentioning loads of facepalming clichés (you're not the only one unfortunately) and by making the discussion godcentric by assuming it's existence. Elaborating on the last, according to some people, science cannot explain everything. Some people think it will in time. Some religious people view that a foolish belief, and say: 'god has a better answer to fundamental questions'. But i ask you, do you truly think replacing a (possibly) to be filled gap in knowledge by a unfalsifiable entity will create proper discussion? By assuming god, you're indeed hiding behind a metaphysical shell. I'm not saying you're wrong. You're just not worth the effort.
You might be able to guess which side i'm on, with proper reading.
On March 26 2014 16:08 Big J wrote: Agnostic is what you are when you don't have the balls to be atheist. Atheist is what you are when you're too arrogant to be agnostic.
The first two lines seems like the only one worth answering to : few people have the ability to write something truly interesting about the subject. I don't, and it doesn't seem you do either, for now. At least you're not resorting to linking fallacies on wikipedia.
hahaha the very classic metaphysics debate on facebook walls. All your debate is a bit meaningless because you all have a different definition of reality. Try asking them how they define what is real, that should lead to a much more constructive discussion. also, don't use analogies, it just makes you look bad.
On March 26 2014 16:09 Aylear wrote: You parrot arguments (made by known theologians) that have been repeatedly refuted throughout history and array them against friends ill-prepared to respond on the spot as if their inability to give you an answer acceptable to you is evidence of the validity of your belief.
There's not much to see here but yet another religion thread that is likely to go nowhere on TeamLiquid but the closed section along with all the other ones.
Good point that 'them being newb doesn't make me correct'. But still, you're saying I'm being biased and that I'm referring to past authority to validate my argument. My dear, you call out such acts, but yet you do exactly the same thing back at me (:
Theologians = biased, because they believe in God, which is obv. wrong, so anything they say is invalid.
My highly biased paraphrase of your very strong bias. Find me a man who is truly 'neutral'. Until that last updated point (which wasn't posted in the discussion) I've deliberately not made any reference to any particular religious authority, text, or movement "a God". I wasn't clear enough, that I'm talking about the most general case of theoretical God, don't assume I'm Christian (however I have yet to be introduced to any other faith that accounts for the nuance of 'how good is good enough'). It's better to keep if general, because you avoid this trickyness:
[arguments] that have been repeatedly refuted throughout history
Show and tell. If you tell, you've got to show. Who/what/where? I've talked about the flaws of agnosticism, not bothering to look for God in the right place (science is inadequate for metaphysics), the impossibility of being good enough for a/any God based on our works or abilities (even if we take science to be our God), and that the only way out is where God says we're good enough regardless of our shortcomings. I really want to know (see this is practice time) if there are any logical flaws in any of the expositions I've made.
But but but you're "Begging the question"!
see end for 'assuming God' response
"There's not much to see here but yet another religion thread that is likely to go nowhere on TeamLiquid but the closed section along with all the other ones."
= Cliché q;
As I see it, it's often unfair how atheists paint a picture of them being 'neutral' (and correct) because they're on the side of SCIENCE, and anyone who believes any different is a biased wacko. Granted, there are lots of wackos out there, but just because you're more tame in your discourse, doesn't automatically mean you are the inertial frame of reference.
We all believe something, we all hold something in our lives to be true beyond reasonable doubt. But there's a difference between
'how we got to that faith' (queue genetic fallacy),
'how much of an insensitive prick we are about our faith' (queue ad hominem), and
'weather our faith is logically self-consistent'
1. Again, that WLC youtube video is short and sweet on 1. Am I communication-failing, are there logical inconsistencies? Or is disagreement nothing more than "oh you believe in God, but I believe that's silly because science (and so does Mr. big-name scientist Newton/Pascal/Galileo/Lemaître [... O WAIT]), therefore you're wrong". + Show Spoiler [genetic fallacy] +
Scientifically 'The sky is (appears to be) blue' is true, yes? If we told a blind kid this but he accepted it on simple faith, it doesn't suddenly make it untrue (though, he'll have a tough time defending it). However 'The sky is blue because it reflects the sea' is a logically incorrect conclusion, but just because some people think this way doesn't invalidate everyone else who holds 'the sky is blue' to be a true statement. They can come to the conclusion via an impeachable path, but that doesn't necessarily force the conclusion to be wrong. If I were marking a lab report/math exam and some kid put the right answer, it's still the right answer, even if his reasoning was a silly story about a dog. In this instance, he wouldn't get rewarded because we're trying to train him to use science/logic/reason. But
if you're in a system (o hai metaphysics) that is un-touchable by empirical science (by definition), I hope you still stick to logic and reason. Sadly, many religious people don't, but then again, most non-scientists accept scientific truths simply on authority too, so it's not just the straw men who suck. I'm trying to investigate and expound this stuff logically and reasonably. I'm asking for it, hit me, red pill plz
On March 26 2014 17:46 coverpunch wrote: Unfortunately, they [atheists] may be very dogmatic about their denial - possibly and ironically more dogmatic than most religious people may be about their own faith. Which leads to its own logical trap of being very intolerant of other beliefs and treating religious people as though they are suckers or stupid and drawing conclusions like guy3 did that religion is totally worthless and wrong.
The reason I'm writing any of this is to try and NOT come off as an arrogant dismissive narrow-minded h@ter, but to learn how to broach the subject without everyone's walls coming up. + Show Spoiler [good point Yorbon] +
I always try to be as approachable and not heavy-handed as possible. Do you guys think there is I said that could alienate, disrespect, or make people feel uncomfortable?
You've prevented the discussion from becoming intellectually challenging by abusing other people's shortcomings in defining a view not their own, by mentioning loads of facepalming clichés (you're not the only one unfortunately) and by making the discussion godcentric by assuming it's existence. Elaborating on the last, according to some people, science cannot explain everything. Some people think it will in time. Some religious people view that a foolish belief, and say: 'god has a better answer to fundamental questions'. But i ask you, do you truly think replacing a (possibly) to be filled gap in knowledge by a unfalsifiable entity will create proper discussion? By assuming god, you're indeed hiding behind a metaphysical shell. I'm not saying you're wrong. You're just not worth the effort.
You might be able to guess which side i'm on, with proper reading.
You're quite right, it was unfair to trap <guy1> so harshly and abuse his failure to define/defend a viewpoint he doesn't even hold! I don't know the guy it's some random discussion group I joined, so I didn't know he was atheist. But are my reproaches of agnosticism valid?
3. Cool Yorbon thanks for the reply.
loads of facepalming clichés (you're not the only one unfortunately)
I meant everything I said, could you please point out to me what/where there are some clichés?
On March 26 2014 21:59 Yorbon wrote: do you truly think replacing a (possibly) to be filled gap in knowledge by a unfalsifiable entity will create proper discussion? By assuming god, you're indeed hiding behind a metaphysical shell. I'm not saying you're wrong. You're just not worth the effort.
Thank you! You're right to pick up on the glaring hole in my worldview, which seems to be that I've accepted God as a child, thus I explain away everything through him, which is an unimpeachable and unfalsifiable way of knowing things, so I'll be stuck in confirming my own 'delusion' forever. I don't seem to have struggled with the question 'wait actually, is there really a God' but I've just 'assumed God' because it's more convenient to do so, I'm naive, and have never been challenged enough to properly think through and critique my own worldview. Is this a fair analysis of what you're assuming/implying? In your (all you readers') experience, what are the biggest flaws with the worldview/philosophy of the religious people you've met?
according to some people, science cannot explain everything. Some people think it will in time. Some religious people view that a foolish belief, and say: 'god has a better answer to fundamental questions'. But i ask you, do you truly think replacing a (possibly) to be filled gap in knowledge by a unfalsifiable entity will create proper discussion?
Basically, the people who think science will explain everything (such as Peter Atkins in the clip) are wrong. You hear it all the time, and most people/scientists don't think beyond it, but there are many reasons why this doesn't fundamentally stack up. In one sense, the problem with thinking 'only the things with empirical evidence are true' is that there is no empirical evidence to prove that statement itself to be true. Reducing all of human existence down to empirical shit closes us off from so much of like (the really tricky and hard-to-answer bits). Also you've got your good ol' Modernist 'well we're not perfect yet, but science is so awesome it's guaranteed to just improve forever until we know everything through it'. Do people really believe that?
Assuming God:
You've prevented the discussion from becoming intellectually challenging ... by making the discussion godcentric by assuming it's existence
Likewise, in replacing 'God' with 'Science', you've got EXACTLY the same problem - how good is good enough? If it were possible to climb to the absolute top of religious adherence or scientific knowledge, we wouldn't be humans, we'd be God, and if there's anything I know, I am certainly NOT God. So what is there to do?!
I am talking about the most general sense of God possible. Not "well you're wrong because my daddy taught me the Christian God is like this, and nyah nyah nyah there is no other way". That's dogmatic and naive. But "theoretically, if there were such a thing as 'God', what would he/she be like, how would we try to reach him/her, and depending on our understanding of what God is like, would it be feasible or futile to reach him/her?' I'm making the leap to say that people who revere and worship science treat it like a religion (See coverpunch's post on dogmatic atheists), and they hold top scientists like gods - the pinnacle of Enlightenment man! Science functions as their guiding light, their life philosophy, their value and reference system by which all other things are measured ... it is their functional God (technically, functional savior).
So I'm saying everyone has some sort of thing in their life that's at the top, that is God to them (this is the only instance of what you could call 'assuming God'). But if you have multiple people in the same value/belief system, there must be a way to describe how well they adhere to it, and their position realtive to eachother - there's a hierarchy, with big-name scientists/philanthropists/church leaders at the top. Doing the good stuff (whatever that may be within our respective system) raises us up, closer to 'God-like status' . e.g. Stephen Fry is kinda like a God-tier humanist, but even then, does that make him un-reprochable, perfect, and the pinnacle of all humanity? So that 'God', which applies to everyone, is what I'm talking about when I describe the whole 'climbing by works' thing.
I'm not regurgitating dogma. I'm not begging the question, saying "God already is. Therefore God IS, by definition!". I don't start by assuming the Christian God is IT, then proceed to dismiss anything that disagrees. Rather, by examining how we come to God I conclude it's not possible for us to work our way up, be we humanist, atheist, agnostic, or anything else. That method of ascent is falsified. Only then is the Christian God posited as the only feasible solution, because the Christian God brings himself down to our level. Well how do we know that's what the Christian God is like, am I just making it up? These are historical scholars' arguments: It's not just theory, historically we have at least 1000 times more copies of the account of Jesus' life, more than any other ancient text or figure see page 3. With more inter-textual agreement and verification than any other ancient source, we know for sure Jesus lived, we know what he said, and people would have zero problem with the reliability of him or the New Testament accounts, were it not for the incredibly provocative and challenging things he says. It's a different question of if Jesus really actually is God (the entire Christian thing depends on that), but he's certainly not made up or assumed.
"Oh well you're assuming Bible, you're putting all your eggs in one basket, you're not being impartial/neutral". Well it's not too fair to dismiss an entire body of evidence as falsified, and demand extra-biblical accounts. Yes the claims are contentious, but you still need evidence and plausible cause that they were falsified (see pg 15). Show me a man who IS neutral! How about first century Judaeo-Roman historian Josephus, and his confirmation of the presence and passing of Jesus. All that's to say is, from an evidence-based point of view, there's lots of really good meat to dig into with Biblical textual criticism.
Overall, this an opportunity to learn what other people's wordviews are, and to practice proposing my own, communicating it in a compact (LOL) and effective manner.
On March 26 2014 16:09 Aylear wrote: You parrot arguments (made by known theologians) that have been repeatedly refuted throughout history and array them against friends ill-prepared to respond on the spot as if their inability to give you an answer acceptable to you is evidence of the validity of your belief.
There's not much to see here but yet another religion thread that is likely to go nowhere on TeamLiquid but the closed section along with all the other ones.
Good point that 'them being newb doesn't make me correct'. But still, you're saying I'm being biased and that I'm referring to past authority to validate my argument. My dear, you call out such acts, but yet you do exactly the same thing back at me (:
Theologians = biased, because they believe in God, which is obv. wrong, so anything they say is invalid.
My highly biased paraphrase of your very strong bias. Find me a man who is truly 'neutral'. Until that last updated point (which wasn't posted in the discussion) I've deliberately not made any reference to any particular religious authority, text, or movement "a God". I wasn't clear enough, that I'm talking about the most general case of theoretical God, don't assume I'm Christian (however I have yet to be introduced to any other faith that accounts for the nuance of 'how good is good enough'). It's better to keep if general, because you avoid this trickyness:
[arguments] that have been repeatedly refuted throughout history
Show and tell. If you tell, you've got to show. Who/what/where? I've talked about the flaws of agnosticism, not bothering to look for God in the right place (science is inadequate for metaphysics), the impossibility of being good enough for a/any God based on our works or abilities (even if we take science to be our God), and that the only way out is where God says we're good enough regardless of our shortcomings. I really want to know (see this is practice time) if there are any logical flaws in any of the expositions I've made.
But but but you're "Begging the question"!
see end for 'assuming God' response
"There's not much to see here but yet another religion thread that is likely to go nowhere on TeamLiquid but the closed section along with all the other ones."
= Cliché q;
As I see it, it's often unfair how atheists paint a picture of them being 'neutral' (and correct) because they're on the side of SCIENCE, and anyone who believes any different is a biased wacko. Granted, there are lots of wackos out there, but just because you're more tame in your discourse, doesn't automatically mean you are the inertial frame of reference.
We all believe something, we all hold something in our lives to be true beyond reasonable doubt. But there's a difference between
'how we got to that faith' (queue genetic fallacy),
'how much of an insensitive prick we are about our faith' (queue ad hominem), and
'weather our faith is logically self-consistent'
1. Again, that WLC youtube video is short and sweet on 1. Am I communication-failing, are there logical inconsistencies? Or is disagreement nothing more than "oh you believe in God, but I believe that's silly because science (and so does Mr. big-name scientist Newton/Pascal/Galileo/Lemaître [... O WAIT]), therefore you're wrong". + Show Spoiler [genetic fallacy] +
Scientifically 'The sky is (appears to be) blue' is true, yes? If we told a blind kid this but he accepted it on simple faith, it doesn't suddenly make it untrue (though, he'll have a tough time defending it). However 'The sky is blue because it reflects the sea' is a logically incorrect conclusion, but just because some people think this way doesn't invalidate everyone else who holds 'the sky is blue' to be a true statement. They can come to the conclusion via an impeachable path, but that doesn't necessarily force the conclusion to be wrong. If I were marking a lab report/math exam and some kid put the right answer, it's still the right answer, even if his reasoning was a silly story about a dog. In this instance, he wouldn't get rewarded because we're trying to train him to use science/logic/reason. But
if you're in a system (o hai metaphysics) that is un-touchable by empirical science (by definition), I hope you still stick to logic and reason. Sadly, many religious people don't, but then again, most non-scientists accept scientific truths simply on authority too, so it's not just the straw men who suck. I'm trying to investigate and expound this stuff logically and reasonably. I'm asking for it, hit me, red pill plz
On March 26 2014 17:46 coverpunch wrote: Unfortunately, they [atheists] may be very dogmatic about their denial - possibly and ironically more dogmatic than most religious people may be about their own faith. Which leads to its own logical trap of being very intolerant of other beliefs and treating religious people as though they are suckers or stupid and drawing conclusions like guy3 did that religion is totally worthless and wrong.
The reason I'm writing any of this is to try and NOT come off as an arrogant dismissive narrow-minded h@ter, but to learn how to broach the subject without everyone's walls coming up. + Show Spoiler [good point Yorbon] +
I always try to be as approachable and not heavy-handed as possible. Do you guys think there is I said that could alienate, disrespect, or make people feel uncomfortable?
You've prevented the discussion from becoming intellectually challenging by abusing other people's shortcomings in defining a view not their own, by mentioning loads of facepalming clichés (you're not the only one unfortunately) and by making the discussion godcentric by assuming it's existence. Elaborating on the last, according to some people, science cannot explain everything. Some people think it will in time. Some religious people view that a foolish belief, and say: 'god has a better answer to fundamental questions'. But i ask you, do you truly think replacing a (possibly) to be filled gap in knowledge by a unfalsifiable entity will create proper discussion? By assuming god, you're indeed hiding behind a metaphysical shell. I'm not saying you're wrong. You're just not worth the effort.
You might be able to guess which side i'm on, with proper reading.
You're quite right, it was unfair to trap <guy1> so harshly and abuse his failure to define/defend a viewpoint he doesn't even hold! I don't know the guy it's some random discussion group I joined, so I didn't know he was atheist. But are my reproaches of agnosticism valid?
3. Cool Yorbon thanks for the reply.
loads of facepalming clichés (you're not the only one unfortunately)
I meant everything I said, could you please point out to me what/where there are some clichés?
On March 26 2014 21:59 Yorbon wrote: do you truly think replacing a (possibly) to be filled gap in knowledge by a unfalsifiable entity will create proper discussion? By assuming god, you're indeed hiding behind a metaphysical shell. I'm not saying you're wrong. You're just not worth the effort.
Thank you! You're right to pick up on the glaring hole in my worldview, which seems to be that I've accepted God as a child, thus I explain away everything through him, which is an unimpeachable and unfalsifiable way of knowing things, so I'll be stuck in confirming my own 'delusion' forever. I don't seem to have struggled with the question 'wait actually, is there really a God' but I've just 'assumed God' because it's more convenient to do so, I'm naive, and have never been challenged enough to properly think through and critique my own worldview. Is this a fair analysis of what you're assuming/implying? In your (all you readers') experience, what are the biggest flaws with the worldview/philosophy of the religious people you've met?
according to some people, science cannot explain everything. Some people think it will in time. Some religious people view that a foolish belief, and say: 'god has a better answer to fundamental questions'. But i ask you, do you truly think replacing a (possibly) to be filled gap in knowledge by a unfalsifiable entity will create proper discussion?
Basically, the people who think science will explain everything (such as Peter Atkins in the clip) are wrong. You hear it all the time, and most people/scientists don't think beyond it, but there are many reasons why this doesn't fundamentally stack up. In one sense, the problem with thinking 'only the things with empirical evidence are true' is that there is no empirical evidence to prove that statement itself to be true. Reducing all of human existence down to empirical shit closes us off from so much of like (the really tricky and hard-to-answer bits). Also you've got your good ol' Modernist 'well we're not perfect yet, but science is so awesome it's guaranteed to just improve forever until we know everything through it'. Do people really believe that?
Assuming God:
You've prevented the discussion from becoming intellectually challenging ... by making the discussion godcentric by assuming it's existence
Likewise, in replacing 'God' with 'Science', you've got EXACTLY the same problem - how good is good enough? If it were possible to climb to the absolute top of religious adherence or scientific knowledge, we wouldn't be humans, we'd be God, and if there's anything I know, I am certainly NOT God. So what is there to do?!
I am talking about the most general sense of God possible. Not "well you're wrong because my daddy taught me the Christian God is like this, and nyah nyah nyah there is no other way". That's dogmatic and naive. But "theoretically, if there were such a thing as 'God', what would he/she be like, how would we try to reach him/her, and depending on our understanding of what God is like, would it be feasible or futile to reach him/her?' I'm making the leap to say that people who revere and worship science treat it like a religion (See coverpunch's post on dogmatic atheists), and they hold top scientists like gods - the pinnacle of Enlightenment man! Science functions as their guiding light, their life philosophy, their value and reference system by which all other things are measured ... it is their functional God (technically, functional savior).
So I'm saying everyone has some sort of thing in their life that's at the top, that is God to them (this is the only instance of what you could call 'assuming God'). But if you have multiple people in the same value/belief system, there must be a way to describe how well they adhere to it, and their position realtive to eachother - there's a hierarchy, with big-name scientists/philanthropists/church leaders at the top. Doing the good stuff (whatever that may be within our respective system) raises us up, closer to 'God-like status' . e.g. Stephen Fry is kinda like a God-tier humanist, but even then, does that make him un-reprochable, perfect, and the pinnacle of all humanity? So that 'God', which applies to everyone, is what I'm talking about when I describe the whole 'climbing by works' thing.
I'm not regurgitating dogma. I'm not begging the question, saying "God already is. Therefore God IS, by definition!". I don't start by assuming the Christian God is IT, then proceed to dismiss anything that disagrees. Rather, by examining how we come to God I conclude it's not possible for us to work our way up, be we humanist, atheist, agnostic, or anything else. That method of ascent is falsified. Only then is the Christian God posited as the only feasible solution, because the Christian God brings himself down to our level. Well how do we know that's what the Christian God is like, am I just making it up? These are historical scholars' arguments: It's not just theory, historically we have at least 1000 times more copies of the account of Jesus' life, more than any other ancient text or figure see page 3. With more inter-textual agreement and verification than any other ancient source, we know for sure Jesus lived, we know what he said, and people would have zero problem with the reliability of him or the New Testament accounts, were it not for the incredibly provocative and challenging things he says. It's a different question of if Jesus really actually is God (the entire Christian thing depends on that), but he's certainly not made up or assumed.
"Oh well you're assuming Bible, you're putting all your eggs in one basket, you're not being impartial/neutral". Well it's not too fair to dismiss an entire body of evidence as falsified, and demand extra-biblical accounts. Yes the claims are contentious, but you still need evidence and plausible cause that they were falsified (see pg 15). Show me a man who IS neutral! How about first century Judaeo-Roman historian Josephus, and his confirmation of the presence and passing of Jesus. All that's to say is, from an evidence-based point of view, there's lots of really good meat to dig into with Biblical textual criticism.
Overall, this an opportunity to learn what other people's wordviews are, and to practice proposing my own, communicating it in a compact (LOL) and effective manner.
The universe follows knowable laws, we have deduced many of them and have never once seen them broken. If God can break these laws and meddle with the world as he sees fit, then why do we never see evidence of this? If God can act upon the Universe and change things, we would notice it, it would be very evident because we would see anomalies that we couldn't account for otherwise, no such anomalies exist.
I am not an Atheist, I find that word offensive and dumb. No one calls me an Atoothfairyist or an Asantaist and a belief in god by anyone with a properly functioning adult brain is just as stupid as said adult beliving that Santa, Monsters under your bed or the Toothfairy exist. Whenever people talk about Metaphysics i just want to hit them over the head with a cricket bat, metaphysics is nonsense, you can't just attach the word physics to meta and suddenly have some science above the fundamental science of the universe. Its like these people who stick "ology" or "ologist" to the end of a word to make it sound like a real scientific pursuit.
There is no logical or physical reason to believe God or Gods exist. There is no need for them, we can explain why the universe exists, how it came in to being and how we came to be here, within knowable physical and natural laws. It was recently caculated that our universe contains 0 net gravitational energy, i.e it is flat. As it contains 0 net gravitational energy, it can have arisen from nothing. We will eventually crack how to create life from inanimate matter and show that it can happen without any intervention from God.
The only God I can possibly find a logical consistency to is not some supernatural being that watches over us constantly, even when we are masturbating, having sex, looking at "questionable" porn, being a dick to someone for no reason, sleeping, etc etc. Instead God could logically be some super advance alien race who figured out how to create universes and started our one, once started they just moved on to the next, perhaps they monitor this one, but they certainly wouldn't care about the individual beings within it, there must be countless beings in the universe and why would a being capable of creating a universe give two shits whats happens to any individual one?
The simple fact is, that a loving, all knowing god is logically flawed and highly egotistical. To think that God created the universe with you in mind, is simply laughable. Do you care about the insects under your feet? Or the millions of microbes all around you? No you don't, and you are genetically related to them, they evolved on the same planet, you are closer to them than any to any being that doesn't come from this planet. The difference between us and any being capable of creating a universe is vastly, infinitely larger than between us and an ant.
I do not know for sure if god does or doesn't exist, no one does. Anyone who claims otherwise is a moron or lying. However, I am as certain as I can be, based upon the complete lack of evidence, either theoretical, logical or physical, that there is no God, and even more certain that if there is a God or Gods, super advance alien race or whatever, that they don't give a shit about me and whether or not my dad dies of cancer or not.
On March 27 2014 04:13 emythrel wrote: The universe follows knowable laws, we have deduced many of them and have never once seen them broken. If God can break these laws and meddle with the world as he sees fit, then why do we never see evidence of this? If God can act upon the Universe and change things, we would notice it, it would be very evident because we would see anomalies that we couldn't account for otherwise, no such anomalies exist.
So if God chooses to do things while still following the laws of nature it wouldn't count? (I mean, if there was an omnipotent being they could simply interact with the universe they created without disturbing it right?)
Even if there were anomalies wouldn't you just claim that "science isn't there yet"?
What about medicine (or more specifically cancer since you brought it up)? There are accounts of treatments working or not working, diseases 'mysteriously' going into remission or just as suddenly coming back.
I don't know if any of that is God or simply science needing more time... Whichever you believe requires 'faith'.
On March 27 2014 04:13 emythrel wrote: The universe follows knowable laws, we have deduced many of them and have never once seen them broken. If God can break these laws and meddle with the world as he sees fit, then why do we never see evidence of this? If God can act upon the Universe and change things, we would notice it, it would be very evident because we would see anomalies that we couldn't account for otherwise, no such anomalies exist.
So if God chooses to do things while still following the laws of nature it wouldn't count? (I mean, if there was an omnipotent being they could simply interact with the universe they created without disturbing it right?)
Even if there were anomalies wouldn't you just claim that "science isn't there yet"?
What about medicine (or more specifically cancer since you brought it up)? There are accounts of treatments working or not working, diseases 'mysteriously' going into remission or just as suddenly coming back.
I don't know if any of that is God or simply science needing more time... Whichever you believe requires 'faith'.
Not really the same faith. One is completely baseless, sometimes based on a one-time experience like NDEs, the other is based on experience and observable, replicated phenomena. It's like comparing faith in Jesus being God to faith in the sun rising tomorrow. They have a similarity, but they are critically different. (AKA faith in the natural vs faith in the supernatural)
On March 26 2014 17:44 GERMasta wrote: Whenever someone uses the term "absolute truth" I cringe very hard and know the conversation will be of a very low quality. As is the case, neither guy1, guy3 nor you had anything interesting to say and since neither party is obviously interested in learning from the other, all of you are completely barred from making any intellectual progress. Such is the internet.
Funny. I cringe whenever I hear comments like yours because what they say to me is "I'm not just sure of my position, I'm sure yours is wrong." Socrates would despise you. Humans don't know the absolute truth. The definition of a God is someone who does. If you want to look at it from a more scientific angle rather than an epistemological one try to think about the implications of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. According to an obtusely titled article in the huffing ton post, we have even proved its existence in the macro world and not just the strange theoretical world of quantum mechanics. If there are elements of the universe that are "hard coded" to be indecipherable it might be taken as proof that Socrates was right.
Actually I've learned about the uncertainty principle from my intro to quantum mechanics lectures. The fundamental concept is actually pretty simple and applies to waves of all kinds, not just on the scale of a quanton (or any particle that displays wavelike behaviour).
I think the real explanation is highly complex involving an understanding of Hilbert space and Fourier transforms...but it was explained in another way for us beginners. Basically, if you have a single wavefront moving through some medium, it has a highly localized position, but you have no idea what the wavelength is (you can't really define it unless you have multiple waves to measure a peak-to-peak distance with).
Conversely, if you have multiple waves moving through a medium, its hard to say "where is this wave?" but you can say what the wavelength is. Since by de Broglie's formula you have p = h/(lambda), where lambda is wavelength, then wavelength uncertainty relates to momentum uncertainty (which is p, h is planck's constant)...ultimately this relates to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which states that position and momentum can't both be known precisely (i.e. a wave can't have precise position and wavelength at the same time). So it actually applies to all waveforms, quantum mechanics is just one particular application of the uncertainty principle since particles are described by waves at that level.
As you can imagine at the macro scale wavelength is extremely small because planck's constant is something to the power of 10^(-34)...but yeah we still have a tiny wavelength and some degree of uncertainty in terms of where we are at any given time.
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On a separate note, from the OP:
What frustrates me with people demanding 'evidence, proof' is that they're constructing an unfair test, trying to force metaphysical manifestation (of a God) to show up in physical experiments. Go figure you won't see it, your worldview is closed to it, your model is looking in the wrong place! There's got to be a way of being discerning and reasonable with this God stuff (a different topic entirely). But I find fault in the way most people today try and 'test' (rather 'invalidate') the existence of the supernatural.
I think that's a fair point, but at the same time, I think there are more reasonable people & scientists who have made real efforts to try to show God's existence in more nuanced ways than "booming voice from the sky" or something like that.
So for example faith healing. I think this is one area in which religious people claim that God really exists. But I think there have been many, many studies done on this from a variety of universities & institutions, and no one really has found any convincing evidence that praying for someone really confers any significant benefit. I mean it is hard to measure in the first place what a "good level" of prayer is, but assuming they can account for that somehow (otherwise all the studies would be bogus), there should be some relationship, but they don't observe anything really (and remember, these are double blind studies)
I actually think its okay to be an atheist with respect to God, just because the claims made by the bible can be refuted by the geological record. So for instance, the age of the Earth (going through the list of people who were the descendants of adam and eve). Just today I was wondering about Noah's ark (because of the movie)...I mean really was the whole world covered with water? Where did all that water go? Shouldn't there be massive evidence that this occurred? It just doesn't make sense.
So if you don't believe in those stories, the whole bible is suspect....but besides that, the statements made by God are so ridiculous, and the stories are so absurd (Jesus dying for us...why is that even necessary?? Eternal hellfire for stealing bread if you don't ask for forgiveness?? What about everyone who died before Jesus? Why would God create people and confuse them so thoroughly, give them almost no evidence, and damn them to hell for not believing?! This still goes on in remote amazonian tribes)...that you actually can't believe in it if you consider God to be even of average intelligence.
Yep...hence why I think most people would tend to be atheists. And I'm sorry to say but I think they'd tend to be intelligent people. There are intelligent Christians too of course...its just that, they end up "picking and choosing" the parts they believe in (lets just ignore the old testament everybody), and somehow they come out of it with a strong faith. Either that or they turn everything into a metaphor and twist the meaning so it makes sense...which is just another method of picking and choosing.
It's the regular sophistry: 1) nothing can be proven with absolute certainty, so every opinion is valid 2) faith and science belong to different spheres, so scientific discourse doesn't apply to religion 3) the Bible isn't meant to be taken literally, so it must be interpreted
So you invoke (1) and (2) to establish the possibility that God might exist because he cannot be conclusively disproved. Then, by sleight of hand, you reverse (2) to establish that Christianity is more valid than other religions, because there are more second hand sources and total numbers of believers and Zeus doesn't cast thunderbolts, etcetera. Believing in Allah, however, despite (1), is not a valid opinion - it's a sin for which you will be punished for all of eternity.
Then, you invoke (3) to brush over the explicitly scientific claims the Bible makes, including contradictions too numerous to source. When Matthew quotes Jesus on approving of the Old Testament laws (5:17) or condemning literal cities to suffering in Hell (11:20-11:24), they are of course not meant to be read literally. Then, when you find something nice, such as love your neighbours and forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life and stuff it's suddenly proof of God's infinite benevolence, no need for interpretation (3).
And if someone asks you why people suffer in a world created by God, it's all theology and free will and stuff, but it turns out that if we don't use our free will to slave under God's commandments, then we'll be condemned to literal, eternal punishment (25:46). When people are maimed and killed by, say, earthquakes, God works in mysterious ways and we cannot comprehend his Divine Plan, but the rest of the time, the church understands it perfectly well and tells people they have sinned and must do penance and repress the homosexual desires with which they were blessed by God.
Such is the intellectual dishonesty required just so that, when you don't like gay marriage or competing religions or abortion, you can point to the Bible and pretend it's the word of God, no need for rational thought, the Sky Dictator's got your back.