The Flat Earth Society
Other Discussion Boards => The Lounge => Topic started by: Ubuntu on November 09, 2006, 02:58:36 PM
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WIRED: The Crusade Against Religion
My friends, I must ask you an important question today: Where do you stand on God?
It's a question you may prefer not to be asked. But I'm afraid I have no choice. We find ourselves, this very autumn, three and a half centuries after the intellectual martyrdom of Galileo, caught up in a struggle of ultimate importance, when each one of us must make a commitment. It is time to declare our position.
Continue... (http://wired.com/news/wiredmag/0,71985-0.html?tw=wn_index_1)
*Dysfunction earns +1 "Street Cred"*
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I like your avatar (if that's what it's called). However, without religion the twin towers would've never been built :-). I've read part of this thing you posted but I'll read it all sometime.
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I like your avatar (if that's what it's called). However, without religion the twin towers would've never been built :-). I've read part of this thing you posted but I'll read it all sometime.
Explain.
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Well, no religion in the past = different outcome for the future. Butterfly effect to a very very very large degree.
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Well, no religion in the past = different outcome for the future. Butterfly effect to a very very very large degree.
Baaah.
And I'm sure you know why I'm "Baaah"ing.
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Lol no not really.
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That's a fantastic article. One of the best things I've read in a long time. Thanks for the post! I guess I'm already a New Atheist and I came to a different conclusion to the author since it inspired me to be more active in the war against religion and not to tolerate religion at all although I do also very much agree with his last line:
"Or, you might say, our bedrock faith: the faith that no matter how confident we are in our beliefs, there's always a chance we could turn out to be wrong."
However I think in reality we need to look at what that chance is and I think there are times when we can put our money on being absolutely 100% right. In the case of God, I do that. While there is obviously a theoretical chance that God exists, that chance is so small and based on so little actual independent evidence that I am happy to state that God does not exist - If this were poker then I'd go all in on the non-existence of God without a second thought.
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Well, no religion in the past = different outcome for the future. Butterfly effect to a very very very large degree.
True, if the money and time spent on religion was put into science, the twin towers would have been built years earlier.
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Well, beast, I would obviously argue that the structure that we generally tend to call "Twin Towers" would have never been built had the world never been influenced by religion. Not only that, but the entire structure of the world would be entirely different (i.e. no U.S., Russia, China, etc.--you get the point). I tend to believe in the butterfly effect to a somewhat extreme degree, yet I feel I can justify that belief if the situation arises. Consider this: I claim that, had President Lincoln been shot as he entered Ford's Theatre, not a single person alive today would have ever been born. Thus, not a single building constructed within the last 100 years would be here.
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I doubt the 'butterfly effect' would be quite as large as Knight envisions, but I do agree that if there had never been religion, the Two Towers would never have been built. Would we be better off? I must admit I don't know. It seems likely the Dark Ages would never have happened, and we might therefore well be several hundred years in advance of where we are now technologically. I think we can all agree that any good religion has done would likely have happened without it- religion doesn't really change people's basic nature- but the question Dawkins doesn't seem to consider is whether the evil caused by religion would have happened anyway. I'm not certain we can have it both ways.
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I wont get into a conversation here about the butterfly effect but perhaps sometime I'll start a thread about it and we can discuss it there.
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At the dawn of man, the natural questions about the origin of life and nature were incapable of being answered with Science, as there was no methodology or collective knowlege base to help mankind. Magic was the only available answer.
In middle age civilization, the need for a belief in an entity of superiority was necessary to maintain order among the masses.
In modern day the belief in a god is necessary for some, but not all.
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In middle age civilization, the need for a belief in an entity of superiority was necessary to maintain order among the masses.
I'm not sure I agree with you. Usually governments (usually monarchies) controlled masses through government, and churches through religion.
It was definitely used to order the masses in a desired way, but was it really necessary?
I doubt it.
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I claim that, had President Lincoln been shot as he entered Ford's Theatre, not a single person alive today would have ever been born.
Well, if it somehow delayed intercourse for everyone's parents for even a single second, the people born would not be the same.
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I don't really understand why Knight was addressing me with his point since I haven't made an attempt to get into a debate about what the world would be like without religion. That's really a pointless argument because not only is it wild speculation but there is nothing we can about it anyway. What I'm suggesting is that we aim for a world without religion in the future, not one without religion in the past. That seems like a much more attainable goal. You could say that I'm taking the easy way out but if you did say that I would call you a fool.
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I claim that, had President Lincoln been shot as he entered Ford's Theatre, not a single person alive today would have ever been born.
Well, if it somehow delayed intercourse for everyone's parents for even a single second, the people born would not be the same.
Sort of reminds me of causality Knight...
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I don't really understand why Knight was addressing me with his point since I haven't made an attempt to get into a debate about what the world would be like without religion. That's really a pointless argument because not only is it wild speculation but there is nothing we can about it anyway. What I'm suggesting is that we aim for a world without religion in the future, not one without religion in the past. That seems like a much more attainable goal. You could say that I'm taking the easy way out but if you did say that I would call you a fool.
Beast you coward! The clear path is to build a time machine as soon as possible!
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Well, if it somehow delayed intercourse for everyone's parents for even a single second, the people born would not be the same.
Yes.
Sort of reminds me of causality Knight...
Sort of reminds me of that too. There is, however, a problem with causation. But perhaps that's a different topic for a different thread.
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Well, if it somehow delayed intercourse for everyone's parents for even a single second, the people born would not be the same.
Yes.
How do you know? What evidence can you possibly have that that's the case?
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Well, if it somehow delayed intercourse for everyone's parents for even a single second, the people born would not be the same.
Yes.
How do you know? What evidence can you possibly have that that's the case?
Think of the difference it would have on the actions of the sperm.
While we're speaking of spirituality and oversized avatars, I'd like to mention I have a friend from school who is a follower of Stosh, "a religion I discovered in the shower." Just remember, Alifran is waiting.
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I claim that, had President Lincoln been shot as he entered Ford's Theatre, not a single person alive today would have ever been born.
Well, if it somehow delayed intercourse for everyone's parents for even a single second, the people born would not be the same.
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How do you know? What evidence can you possibly have that that's the case?
Well, when you consider that each ejaculation contains 300-500 million sperm, any delay in time would almost certainly yield a different embryo.
Also, consider that the delayed timeframe would be monumental all around the world (eventually) even from some change as small as the location and time that President Lincoln got shot. The actions of every person at the theatre would have been different; the actions of every person who heard the (different) news at a different time than original would have been different; essentially, everything would be different. The only possible way for things to have ended up as they have ended up is for past events to have occurred exactly (or almost exactly) as they have.
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Lol no not really.
The butterfly effect translated into a logical argument makes a nightmare.
Mainly because its susceptible to slippery slope.
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Well, if it somehow delayed intercourse for everyone's parents for even a single second, the people born would not be the same.
Yes.
How do you know? What evidence can you possibly have that that's the case?
Considering there are 6-7 billion people on earth, and only a few hundred million sperm per ejaculation, surely someone in the chain would still be born. But then again, the day the sperm of such person was produced would probably be different than before, and then they'd also have to do it on the day the sperm was produced... no, I guess that doesn't even work.
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If religion had never existed, there would still have been Dark Ages. If religion had stopped existing during the Dark Ages, however, there might not have been a Renaissance, which grew out of knowledge from antiquity brought back on the Crusades.
Being against religion in all forms is like being against nationality in all forms. It's an interesting idea but it's futile. I think everybody who says, "I'm against religion in all forms" needs to get over it and take whatever energy you're spending on that problem and direct it somewhere more useful. It's such an intellectually adolescent view.
As for the butterfly effect: air molecules are highly chaotic. Brownian motion dominates their individual dynamics. And yet, wind manages to blow from one direction at a time and I manage to breathe regularly. Those who care about the butterfly effect should consider the butterfly attractor: the complex region in the state space of a three-dimensional dynamical system that looks like a butterfly and that is made up of chaotic trajectories through the space. The trajectories are chaotic but the attractor is nevertheless confined to a region of space.
The point is that you're pretty stuck up on small details. Large scale systems with chaotic components may still behave in nonchaotic ways. If you kill Lincoln five minutes earlier, there may be different people, but overall society would look the same.
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Being against religion in all forms is like being against nationality in all forms. It's an interesting idea but it's futile. I think everybody who says, "I'm against religion in all forms" needs to get over it and take whatever energy you're spending on that problem and direct it somewhere more useful. It's such an intellectually adolescent view.
What forms are beneficial and which are malevolent?
If you kill Lincoln five minutes earlier, there may be different people, but overall society would look the same.
That may be true, but it is very possible, due to the publicity of this event, millions of people would not have been born.
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What forms are beneficial and which are malevolent?
If you're asking for clarification on my post, then my response is that I didn't discuss the forms of religion at all, least of which the benevolent/malevolent distinction.
If you're asking for my personal belief, I state first that it's not relevant, and second that I'd rather discuss it in a different thread.
That may be true, but it is very possible, due to the publicity of this event, millions of people would not have been born.
I'm pretty sure that I said that.
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I'm sorry but there is no way I can believe that you know I would be a different person if a different sperm had fertilised my egg. That is completely speculation. I refuse to accept that there is any way you could know how differently a person would turn out based on which sperm fertilises which egg. I'm not saying that I would be identical with different sperm, just that there is no way you can know how big a difference it would make on my life. There is just as much reason to think that had I been conceived 2 years earlier I would still be sitting right here posting this message on this forum as there is to think that I wouldn't be - and that amount of reason is 0.
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Each sperm carries different DNA (a randomly selected half of the father's DNA). Ergo, you would be a different person.
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Completely disregarding the concept of "Nurture" in the game of nature and nurture, of course.
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Completely disregarding the concept of "Nurture" in the game of nature and nurture, of course.
Of course. That would only amplify the differences.
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Being raised by the same people, I don't see how the differences in personality could be that great. However, gender could certainly be a problem.
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back on topic anyone?
"Myself, I've decided to refuse the call. The irony of the New Atheism -- this prophetic attack on prophecy, this extremism in opposition to extremism -- is too much for me."
i tend to agree with. if people are incapable of realising truth theres no point trying to shove it down their throats as they might end up vomiting in your face.
i thought one of the best things about atheism was that it wasnt out to convince anyone. if you look at it logically then its so obvious that the possibility of god is so remote that its not worth worrying about no matter what other people say. just like the feeling of needing to defend RE.
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That's a noble argument but you need to have a sense of perspective and see the power that religion has in the world and how much control people have over issues where their only "qualifications" are their belief in a falsehood. It's not a question of if people should have a right to believe whatever they want, the problem is that it's impossible to name a politician in Australia who has publicly stated that they're an atheist yet you can name plenty that have publicly stated that they're religion. It's a problem that moral decisions are based not on thought and reason but on what deluded people interpret a fictitious book says we should do. Countless studies have shown that people who do not believe in God have an average IQ significantly higher than people who do not believe in God and yet that lack of belief makes it harder to be elected into a position of power. If we want society to go forward we need to start making our decisions based on reason instead of faith.
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i dont see how you can say it will "make society go forward". in what direction? communism thought removal of god was important and spat rhetoric that it was "the opiate of the masses"( i know that might be wrong, but its makes the point). what grand scheme does new atheism propose we move toward? a godless world? thats about as thought through as greenies wanting to stop logging permanently. i'd prefer a broader explanation of how new atheism is going to move us "forward" before i jump on the band wagon of atheievangelism.
i basically just cant see how new atheism on a global scale wont start another war about religion.
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It's not a question of if people should have a right to believe whatever they want,
i see that it is. either in that article or another one dysfunction posted dawkins was talking about should society allow parents to teach their children falsities(existance of god). surely if your new atheism is going to start questioning if parents have a right to teach their children what they believe then we're infact moving backward to times when you believed or were persecuted. when *i* look at history and see people taking such extreme stances in their belief like i believe new atheism is the follow up has always ben more bloodshed.
because if this is the line new atheism is going to be taking, i'm not going to call it "moving forward".
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Nobody in new atheism is suggesting we legislate in any way against religion. They're saying that it's immoral to teach your children lies, not that it should be illegal - that's a pretty significant difference.
By "going forward" - I mean towards a direction of enlightenment and a new renaissance - I mean aiming to create a world where decisions are made based on reason and objectivity, not lies and delusions.
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i thought one of the best things about atheism was that it wasnt out to convince anyone.
That's a generalization. Atheism isn't organized like most of the religions are, and really, "atheist" shouldn't even be a word. Is there a word for not being a astrologer?
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Nobody in new atheism is suggesting we legislate in any way against religion. They're saying that it's immoral to teach your children lies, not that it should be illegal - that's a pretty significant difference.
Sam Harris (Letter to a Christian Nation) has made it very clear that it would be unwise to use legal force to restrict religion, or even Holocaust deniers.
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"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet."
--Napoleon
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"Religion is the Opiate of the people"
Marx
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Wasn't it "Opiate of the masses"? ;P Not that the wording really matters, of course.
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Wasn't it "Opiate of the masses"? ;P Not that the wording really matters, of course.
Wasn't it written in Russian and then translated?
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i thought one of the best things about atheism was that it wasnt out to convince anyone.
That's a generalization. Atheism isn't organized like most of the religions are, and really, "atheist" shouldn't even be a word. Is there a word for not being a astrologer?
yeah. my main concern with "new atheism" is that if they dont believe religion should be "tolerated" then its only going to be a few generations when they gain power and will want to enforce their idiology. i cant see how new atheist mentality will result in anything except more religious wars.
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New Atheism doesn't sound very cogent to me.
Sounds like they're waiting for a huge philosophical backhand.
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i thought one of the best things about atheism was that it wasnt out to convince anyone.
That's a generalization. Atheism isn't organized like most of the religions are, and really, "atheist" shouldn't even be a word. Is there a word for not being a astrologer?
yeah. my main concern with "new atheism" is that if they dont believe religion should be "tolerated" then its only going to be a few generations when they gain power and will want to enforce their idiology. i cant see how new atheist mentality will result in anything except more religious wars.
The point is that atheists do not intend to enforce atheism, though there should certainly be classes in public schools that would make children question their religious beliefs; these classes should begin very early.
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i thought one of the best things about atheism was that it wasnt out to convince anyone.
That's a generalization. Atheism isn't organized like most of the religions are, and really, "atheist" shouldn't even be a word. Is there a word for not being a astrologer?
yeah. my main concern with "new atheism" is that if they dont believe religion should be "tolerated" then its only going to be a few generations when they gain power and will want to enforce their idiology. i cant see how new atheist mentality will result in anything except more religious wars.
The point is that atheists do not intend to enforce atheism, though there should certainly be classes in public schools that would make children question their religious beliefs; these classes should begin very early.
Wouldn't that be your average science class, at the very least, Biology?
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Wouldn't that be your average science class, at the very least, Biology?
I hate to burst your bubble, but science doesn't disprove the existence of a Creator. It pretty thoroughly can debunk the Creation story in the bible (which the contradictions in just the first two books of the bible are plenty enough to debunk it for me anyway), sure, but not disprove a Creator.
I think actually teaching more world cultures at an early age would be beneficial to the Atheist cause. The more people understand about other cultures and the other religions, the more likely I believe they are to question "which one is the real God," and eventually come to the conclusion like most of us atheists that none of them are.
That's just my theory, though.
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I think actually teaching more world cultures at an early age would be beneficial to the Atheist cause. The more people understand about other cultures and the other religions, the more likely I believe they are to question "which one is the real God," and eventually come to the conclusion like most of us atheists that none of them are.
Early philosophy class FTW.
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I don't think it should be legal to raise children to be religious. Parents should raise their kids telling them that nobody is better than anyone else, and that they can choose whichever beliefs they want.
Raising a child to be religious is brainwash.
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Indeed. As Daniel Dennett said in the last page of that Wired article, "if you have to hoodwink -- or blindfold -- your children to ensure that they confirm their faith when they are adults, your faith ought to go extinct," which is in reference to teaching a broad spectrum of religions and cultures in schools.
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but if you truely beleive in the religion, then you wont see it as brainwash, but as telling the truth. (i still think it is brainwash though)
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Whether it is brainwash or not, it serves a sort of tribal purpose.
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Wouldn't that be your average science class, at the very least, Biology?
I hate to burst your bubble, but science doesn't disprove the existence of a Creator. It pretty thoroughly can debunk the Creation story in the bible (which the contradictions in just the first two books of the bible are plenty enough to debunk it for me anyway), sure, but not disprove a Creator.
Actually I would say that science comes as close to disproving the creator as anything else does. The belief in a creator means that for no good reason you are allowed to say "something must have created the world" but you're not allowed to say "what created the creator". The idea of a creator leads to a infinitely replicating question while what science teaches us does not. The other point is that science has shown over and over that making up solutions to problems when you have no observational evidence to suggest what you're making up is true is a false logic that often proves you completely wrong. There is no observational evidence that suggests a creator, just as there is no observational evidence that suggests a flying spaghetti monster. If you refuse to believe in the flying spaghetti monster surely you have to apply the same logic to a creator.
People sometimes put forward how complex life is as a reason to believe in a creator, because they find it hard to believe that things so complex could happen 'just by chance.' This is false on two fronts. First to create something so complex, surely the creator would also have to be amazingly complex which means you still have the exact same problem of explaining how something so complex came into being. Secondly natural selection is not about chance - while each generation of an animal might be slightly randomly different to the previous generation, only the changes that are good continue - every step of evolution is not a step of chance but a step of a higher chance of survival.
Science doesn't disprove a creator, it just shows that there's absolutely no need to think that one existed and that the existence of a creator leaves the same questions open that we have without that explanation.
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The idea of a creator leads to a infinitely replicating question while what science teaches us does not.
Nope. I'd like to see how you can explain existence scientifically to where it can adequately jump this same hurdle. I don't think it can be done any better than any religion.
The other point is that science has shown over and over that making up solutions to problems when you have no observational evidence to suggest what you're making up is true is a false logic that often proves you completely wrong.
What makes you so sure that nobody's ever had "observational evidence" to suggest that a creator exists? That's not necessarily the case.
There is no observational evidence that suggests a creator, just as there is no observational evidence that suggests a flying spaghetti monster.
I think you mean to say: "I have not observed anything that suggests that a creator exists. But the people who have had observational evidence of a creator doesn't count because I haven't observed it." That's okay, nobody is asking you to believe somebody else's observational evidence (well, some people are, but I'm not).
People sometimes put forward how complex life is as a reason to believe in a creator, because they find it hard to believe that things so complex could happen 'just by chance.' This is false on two fronts. First to create something so complex, surely the creator would also have to be amazingly complex which means you still have the exact same problem of explaining how something so complex came into being.
Good point, but you're still referring to the "Who created the creator?" question that can't be answered.
Science doesn't disprove a creator, it just shows that there's absolutely no need to think that one existed
Your point is basically: "I can explain all that stuff with science, so there's no need to believe in a creator." That's not a very good argument, because somebody can equally say: "I can explain all that stuff with my idea of a creator, so there's no need to believe in evolution."
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The idea of a creator leads to a infinitely replicating question while what science teaches us does not.
Nope. I'd like to see how you can explain existence scientifically to where it can adequately jump this same hurdle. I don't think it can be done any better than any religion.
Show me an instance where the hurdle of infinitely replicating questions comes up in science.
The other point is that science has shown over and over that making up solutions to problems when you have no observational evidence to suggest what you're making up is true is a false logic that often proves you completely wrong.
What makes you so sure that nobody's ever had "observational evidence" to suggest that a creator exists? That's not necessarily the case.
Show me some observational evidence. I can give you textbooks of observational evidence supporting science.
There is no observational evidence that suggests a creator, just as there is no observational evidence that suggests a flying spaghetti monster.
I think you mean to say: "I have not observed anything that suggests that a creator exists. But the people who have had observational evidence of a creator doesn't count because I haven't observed it." That's okay, nobody is asking you to believe somebody else's observational evidence (well, some people are, but I'm not).
That's not what I'm saying at all. Observational evidence isn't one person seeing a vision - it's evidence that can be repeated and observed by anybody who follows the experiment. In the case of creationism there is none. In the case of science, it's all observational evidence. My point was actually suggesting to people who say that "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" that by that logic they also have to accept that there is much probability of flying spaghetti monsters as there is of God.
People sometimes put forward how complex life is as a reason to believe in a creator, because they find it hard to believe that things so complex could happen 'just by chance.' This is false on two fronts. First to create something so complex, surely the creator would also have to be amazingly complex which means you still have the exact same problem of explaining how something so complex came into being.
Good point, but you're still referring to the "Who created the creator?" question that can't be answered.
Exactly, so it doesn't explain why life must have been created at all. In fact you are still left with the exact same question you had before - how could something so complicated come to be? It's just that you've replaced your complicated item with something even more complicated and instead of having an alternative solution to the one you've given (evolution) you now have no solution.
Science doesn't disprove a creator, it just shows that there's absolutely no need to think that one existed
Your point is basically: "I can explain all that stuff with science, so there's no need to believe in a creator." That's not a very good argument, because somebody can equally say: "I can explain all that stuff with my idea of a creator, so there's no need to believe in evolution."
You're wrong, you can't explain things with the existence of a creator at all. You can't explain how such a complicated being came into existence and you can't explain what evidence there is to believe such a theory. If you believe in a creator, all the answers that the theory attempts to answer remain unanswered. If you 'believe' in science then you either know the answers to the questions or you admit that we don't know everything about the world and that we need to keep working to find the answers. Creationism means we can stop asking questions, stop learning. Science means we need to continue to expand our knowledge.
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Show me an instance where the hurdle of infinitely replicating questions comes up in science.
Scientist: "Matter/energy exists!"
Philosopher: "Where did matter/energy come from?"
Scientist: "..."
Philosopher: "Where did matter/energy come from?"
Scientist: "I don't know."
Show me some observational evidence.
Hmmm... I don't have any of my own observational evidence on me right now. Well, really, if I ever have had my own observation (that served as evidence for a belief) of a creator, it would certainly:
(1) Only be a memory of an observation now, and
(2) Not be adequate enough for you to accept my observation.
Observational evidence isn't one person seeing a vision - it's evidence that can be repeated and observed by anybody who follows the experiment.
Oh I see. So "observational evidence" isn't just "an observation that I have had that has led me to classify it as evidence for some belief"? I would probably define it that way.
In the case of creationism there is none.
In the case of Creationism, there is some. Just not your own observation, therefore, not your own evidence.
My point was actually suggesting to people who say that "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" that by that logic they also have to accept that there is much probability of flying spaghetti monsters as there is of God.
Sure, given that this character, God, has not bestowed upon a person or some people some kind of observational evidence that has led them to believe that God exists and not the flying spaghetti monster.
Exactly, so it doesn't explain why life must have been created at all. In fact you are still left with the exact same question you had before - how could something so complicated come to be? It's just that you've replaced your complicated item with something even more complicated and instead of having an alternative solution to the one you've given (evolution) you now have no solution.
Hmmm...
Observation: "Life forms are so complicated. This, to me, suggests that there must be a complex creator who created me complexly."
(btw, not my observation, just a general one)
You're saying that this doesn't answer why life forms are complex? It certainly does answer that, just not why God (or, the creator) is complex (which cannot be answered).
You're wrong, you can't explain things with the existence of a creator at all. You can't explain how such a complicated being came into existence and you can't explain what evidence there is to believe such a theory.
You can't explain things with "science" at all either, then. Because you can't explain how matter/energy came into existence, you cannot use this "matter/energy" character in your explanations.
Creationism means we can stop asking questions, stop learning. Science means we need to continue to expand our knowledge.
No, not really. I admit that Creationists believe they have the "one True answer" to it all--which ends the conversation. But really, some would argue that the creation story is not at all about the creation of the "physical universe." In that case, the conversation can keep going.
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I don't think it should be legal to raise children to be religious. Parents should raise their kids telling them that nobody is better than anyone else, and that they can choose whichever beliefs they want.
Raising a child to be religious is brainwash.
Raising a child any way is brainwash.
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Knight, you are being, or defending the ideas of, an absolute Sophist. Of course you can argue this and any point you wish, but it is so foolish no reasonable person could take it seriously. Much like the theory cradled in this very forum, I might add.
Magic is also a simpler and more complete explanation of the unexplained to the common man. However, this does not mean that magic is a better explanation, or that it exists.
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Show me an instance where the hurdle of infinitely replicating questions comes up in science.
Scientist: "Matter/energy exists!"
Philosopher: "Where did matter/energy come from?"
Scientist: "..."
Philosopher: "Where did matter/energy come from?"
Scientist: "I don't know."
This is specious; we know matter and energy exist from evidence- whether that existence can be explained is moot. The reason problems of infinite regression are problems for religion and not for science is the claims of religion; that the universe's complexity and 'fine-tuning' can only be explained by a creator. By their own logic, then, the creator must have been created as well. Science makes no such assertions. Science does not demand that all questions be answered at once, and so does not dig that hole for itself. Science recognizes that it has answered certain questions, and has not yet answered certain others, but the lack of answers to these questions in no way reduces the value of what we do know.
Hmmm... I don't have any of my own observational evidence on me right now. Well, really, if I ever have had my own observation (that served as evidence for a belief) of a creator, it would certainly:
(1) Only be a memory of an observation now, and
(2) Not be adequate enough for you to accept my observation.
You know perfectly well what is meant by 'observational evidence.' You are being purposely obtuse.
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Knight, you are being, or defending the ideas of, an absolute Sophist.
Explain what you mean.
Of course you can argue this and any point you wish, but it is so foolish no reasonable person could take it seriously.
As far as I know I'm being completely rational. Explain what you mean by "reasonalbe."
This is specious; we know matter and energy exist from evidence
No, I don't think so. From what I know about the scientific methodology and epistemology in general, the notion that "Matter/energy exists" is something taken on faith as an axiom of science. Once we come to believe that to be true (without any proof of it), we just assume it's true for the rest of the scientific method. A method's axioms cannot be proven within the method itself.
You know perfectly well what is meant by 'observational evidence.' You are being purposely obtuse.
Oh. You probably mean "scientific, repeatable, observational evidence." No, I'm not being obtuse. If I have had a vision and seen a miracle, and the character in my vision was somebody who claimed to be a deity, and that deity adequately convinced me that it existed, then that is definitely observational evidence. You're thinking of it all wrong bud.
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<span style="font-weight: bold">WIRED:...
I heard, that you to a certain extent clever person.
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<span style="font-weight: bold">WIRED:...
I heard, that you to a certain extent clever person.
Huh? Missing predicate, pl0x.
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<span style="font-weight: bold">WIRED:...
I heard, that you to a certain extent clever person.
Huh? Missing predicate, pl0x.
Oh lol
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He means you didn't have to put it in bold...but in a very...obscure way.
imho, religion is BS. Completely.
Knight, what do you define as proof that matter/energy exists? Energy is in...everything. If you deny that exists, I don't know what you've been doing your entire life. Read the side of an energy bar, mayhaps.
If you deny that matter exists, then what is an atom?
Unless I'm reading the question wrong, in which case I refute my argument.
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Energy is in...everything. If you deny that exists, I don't know what you've been doing your entire life.
Perhaps existing as a thought in somebody else's consciousness.
If you deny that matter exists, then what is an atom?
Indeed, what is an atom? Have you ever seen one?
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Linking Terror to Fundamentalism? How about the entire religious thought process?
Fundamental by definition means the primary basis of something. In respect to religion, it means the primary basis of the belief system. Without the fundamentals, there is no basis to have the religion at all, so in essence all people of devout religious faith are fundamentalists. That is to say, that if someone believes differently than they do, even if it is to worship the same deity, they are wrong. They are condemned to hell, and according to scripture, they must die.
Modern changes to religion cherry picks the scriptures to bring out only the morally acceptable verses. We see this every time that a Caliph, Imam, Ayatollah, Mawlana Mullah, Mujtahid, Muezzin, Sahib, Pope, Archdiocese, Bishop, Deacon, Priest, Preacher, Pastor, Rabbi, and Bible Thumper speaks when referencing the bible, they will only discuss the good parts of the book, and not talk to much on the bad, unless they are devout, very faithful, and do not care about being politically correct. Then they would just be shunned as extremists, and isolated further.
But you will find that even though publicly they will claim religious tolerance, their base belief absolutely requires the opposite. Close analysis of each of these religions would show any person who has the time to search, that the concept of religious tolerance can only truly be made by the Agnostic or Atheist, making the thoughts of religious tolerance a contradiction in words to any religious belief system, and completely incompatible with logic.
Each of the major monotheistic religions has an axe to grind with one another. Each one of them preach intolerance. For example:
The Nation of Islam has a scriptural book that primarily condemns those who do not believe as the nation of Islam to hell, death, or even worse. 483 entries specifically curse, condemn, and shape the attitude of the Muslim worshiper into a hateful fury toward the Jewish, and Christian religions.
The Christian religion has 542 entries in the old and new testaments that condemns to hell, death, or severe torture. This shapes the attitudes of Christians into hateful furies against any religion but their own.
The Mormon religion which uses the Bible as well, has a book called the book of Mormon. In this scriptural document, there are 170 entries that attack the Jewish, and believers of other faiths in the same manner. Intentionally isolating the religion from others.
The Jewish religion references the Tora. The old testament. It has 397 entries in it that preach intolerance in the same manner as the rest.
These scriptures are specifically engineered to separate people into the categories of Us and Them. It also clearly maps the two out as good and evil. The Good Vs Evil genre of these books is clear, the reader is good, and they are evil.
The reward for good according to each the religions except Judaism (Jewish) is entrance into eternal paradise. The Koran promises 70 virgin women, and all except Judaism promise eternal peace, prosperity, and eternal life. The punishment for all others is wailing and gnashing of teeth, fire and brimstone, and an eternity in hell.
Pretty extreme eh? Not only the evil doers, but the completely innocent, and generally good people as well. This pretty much shows how each religion is guilty of intolerance, but we have another loop.
Instruction in each religion is shown for the followers to recruit all of those they can to “Save” them by having them join their respective congregations. Now we are talking about a power struggle. A cat fight that tries to dominate the world by brainwashing people into believing their dogma over their previous.
Religious brainwashing has caused some of the most heinous acts in man kinds’s history, from the crusades, the inquisitions, the renaissance wars, the Salem witch trials, the Ku Klux Klan, and so on. It wasn’t until the last century that true religious tolerance became visible to the naked eye as a possibility. Despite World War II’s Hitler, a Christian using his religion as a reason to commit genocide. Milosevich, a Serbian leader that tried to kill Albanians in Kosovo, and Hussien who killed millions of ethnic Kurds in Iraq.
and yet today the root cause of these evils still reside in the eager hands of the world’s religions. The Islamic extremist Osama Bin Laden calls for Jihad on America, Kills thousands of people with aircraft into buildings.
Is there any wonder why the world is going to hell in a hand basket? It has been shown that there is a direct tie between religious people in religiously dominate countries, and immoral behavior. The United States being at the top of the list.
The time for religious intolerance is gone, hence the time for religion in its core forms must be gone as well. The survival of humanity is dependent on the final departure of these dogmas, and adoption of a new religion of humanity.
But I do not believe we will see this day with the nut jobs like pat robertson, George bush, and the other religious right tards having power in any form.
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Well jaybird, I certainly agree that we need better, smarter world leaders, ones that are not dogmatic thinkers, but rational ones. But I think that having famous and powerful religious figures in society is more of a side-effect than a cause (maybe that's what you meant to), because if we were to educate children well enough, the candidates for president from that generation would most likely not be religious, and the voters would be sensible enough to investigate their potential leaders' intelligences (hopefully).