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In the beginning

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  • You say that, but you might think differently if the Smurf Party suddenly tried outlawing maternal prenatal rights, revoking collective bargaining rights, banning non-smurf marriage, and defunding the teaching of higher critical thinking skills in public schools.

    Which is what the religious-right-fueled Republican Party is doing in the name of its god.
  • RymRym
    edited July 2012
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    Post edited by Rym on
  • As long as we're nowhere near the original topic, I'd just like to say that every time I read the words "In the beginning," I start hearing Manowar in my head.
  • As long as we're nowhere near the original topic, I'd just like to say that every time I read the words "In the beginning," I start hearing Manowar in my head.
    I think of that song in Animaniacs. "This is the beginning, the beginning of our story. The beginning. The beginning."
  • It's an easy thing to keep science and faith separate.
    That's what I don't understand about the religious peoples and what makes me angry with them. IMHO, you can believe what you want, but you need to realize that when you start trying to debate with science, science wins. If you want to believe in whatever God(s) you find attractive, that's fine. Just don't go saying that you find proof of an intelligent designer because bananas are easy to hold in your hand.
    It's not that simple, Joe. What makes it difficult for those people is that they believe not only in a God, but in a (mostly) literally true Bible. That does clash strongly with science, and so the level of cognitive dissonance that would be required to believe both is far greater.
    Well, that's really only a subset of religious people. There are plenty of people that are only mildly religious, who think that there might be something to the whole religion thing, but aren't willing to commit wholeheartedly to the entire gamut of whatever belief system was in place thousands of years before they were born.

    That's why I'm largely in agreement with Mr. muppet. The kind little old lady who believes in a loving god? She's not dangerous and she's not mentally ill. She's just a nice lady who might make you some brownies if you behave. I have no problem with her.

    Like a lot of people, it's those Kirk Cameron types I can't stand.

    If your argument is, "I like to believe X because it makes me happy and so makes the sadness in my life a little more bearable", then that's outstanding. If your argument is "I believe X, so I'm going to try and make you and your family believe X, and if you don't, I'll totally oppress and/or kill you", then we have a problem.

  • You say that, but you might think differently if the Smurf Party suddenly tried outlawing maternal prenatal rights, revoking collective bargaining rights, banning non-smurf marriage, and defunding the teaching of higher critical thinking skills in public schools.

    Which is what the religious-right-fueled Republican Party is doing in the name of its god.
    My argument isn't that this is OK, it's that not every religious person has an agenda related to their religion. I believe there is probably a God, and I'm probably the most Leftist, Socialist guy you are ever going to meet. I don't give a shit what you do with your genitals or your uterus.

    The only right leaning issue I've got, pretty much, is gun control.
  • I'm probably the most Leftist, Socialist guy you are ever going to meet.
    That's the only thing you've said that I find totally disagreeable.

    I am the most Leftist, Socialist guy you are ever going to meet.
  • I'm probably just making things worse by throwing my hat into the ring here but what the heck...
    I think what Creamsteak was trying to say is that if we follow logic, we cannot observe a god/gods or smurfs or what have you, but just because we cannot detect them does not mean that they absolutely do not exist. If I am understanding him correctly, he was basically arguing for an agnostic position from a logical standpoint. If I have that wrong, I apologize.
    I also agree with Joe and muppet that there's no real problem with believing in something that gets you through the day if it's not hurting anyone else. I'd call myself agnostic now but I'm really not that different of a person than I was when I went to the local Catholic Church every Sunday. When my grandpa died and everyone was saying he was in a better place, it would have been the worst argument ever to say "Nope, he's gone and that's all there is to it." We were all in grief from losing someone dear to us and the belief, irrational or not, that my grandfather was in a better place got my family through a really hard time.
    I understand what people are saying, that religious belief can be harmful, and I don't support that in any way, but I think sometimes we take things to a bit of an extreme here when it comes to religious discussions. I'll leave it at that before I put my foot too far in my mouth.
  • I'm probably the most Leftist, Socialist guy you are ever going to meet.
    That's the only thing you've said that I find totally disagreeable.

    I am the most Leftist, Socialist guy you are ever going to meet.
  • edited July 2012
    Listen, I think the issue here is being confused and the angle keeps changing in every three posts.

    The issue here is this. Creamsteak talked about the Empty Set. Do you not start from an Empty Set, and then Assume that God(A) exists? So you have to prove it, because you're making an assumption. Atheism is not making any assumptions. It's the logically correct position. The empty set is where atheism exists. You're adding A to the empty set, but you aren't proving it.

    Just to clear it up, Atheism means that you do not believe in any gods. Agnosticism means that you do not know if Gods exist. That means that I, just like every other athiest in the world (or at least the intelligent ones), am an Agnostic Athiest. I believe that no gods exist, but that it remains a possibility. We're not claiming knowledge. We're just going with fact.

    The burden of proof lies on God and that has been said on this forum so many times it's kind of ridiculous. I don't understand why this is such a difficult conclusion to come to for so many people.

    Also, I'd add that not following simple logic, or using flawed logic and believing it's correct is a generally unhealthy behavior. When you start to remove logic from your thought process even once, then the capacity for removing it in other situations is much more possible. (I also think that the removal of logic might affect the way the brain works, and if that is the case, then the brain could be permanently changed by that belief. I know that they have done scans of praying people and that your brain shuts down except for a small part of that. If anyone with more knowledge than me wants to chime in on how the brain is affected by the removal of logic, please do!) We try to stop drug use, fighting, obesity, starvation, etc, so why not crack down on yet another extremely common but unhealthy practice?
    Post edited by Vhdblood on
  • edited July 2012
    What I don't understand is why anyone can't fathom that lack of evidence does not equal lack of thing. It's really just that simple. I don't tell you how to live. Well, not with God as an excuse, anyway. I don't expect anything from God because I don't know who God is. I don't attribute God motive or desire or function or will.

    There is no argument here. There's nothing to prove or disprove. There's nothing that CAN be proven or disproven. For some reason, this still drives otherwise logical and sensible people into paroxysm. Just let it go.

    "Lack of evidence equals lack of existence" is not logic, no matter how hard you wish for it to be. I'm not using that to prove God, or the Bible, or anything. Simply to prove that you can't disprove that there may be some sort of God. That's it. No agenda. Nothing. Get over it. :-)
    Post edited by muppet on
  • edited July 2012
    "Lack of evidence equals lack of existence" is not logic,
    It is more logical to not believe in it than to believe it, is that better? You're still making a claim, that God exists, but that you just said is not provable. That's illogical. To be more specific, faith is illogical, yet you are doing that.
    Post edited by Vhdblood on
  • It is more logical to not believe in it than to believe it, is that better?
    I'm not sure that's the case. Pure, boolean logic will tell you that lack of evidence tells you nothing. Extrapolating from lack of evidence (to assure yourself that there will never be evidence) is not logical, either. You can invoke Occam's Razor, but that's a rule of thumb, not a natural law.

    I said that I like to think a God exists. That's it. It's my prerogative. I neither believe nor disbelieve. I just favor the former a bit more. This is no more illogical than favoring the latter, really. There's no logical argument for either.

    This REALLY pisses people off. I don't get it. Go after Bible thumpers, not me.
  • Eh, my position is relatively agnostic. I think it's extremely unlikely that any divinity exists, and I think that in a pragmatic sense whether it does or not is irrelevant to what we should do. What we should do is what we should do, and there are reasons that can justify that outside of divine mandate given the time and inclination to think about it. If your faith helps make you a better person than you would otherwise be, I absolutely and completely support that.

    Basically, I'm pretty close to an atheist, but admit my lack of knowledge and am mostly concerned with doing the right thing. If believing in some religion helps you do that, I will love and appreciate the fact that you have that. And I'm at ease with that. I have no animosity towards religion or non-religion. I want us all to help each other and do awesome things.

    So in the pragmatic sense I'm very conflicted with both religious zealoutry and atheist zealotry. The people that, after we get past the conflict, say "OK, well, you did good things. I'll work with you" are alright. And the thing about everyone on this forum is that I believe you all want what's well and good. You just encounter a whole lot of the "dumb" out there, mostly on the opposing side. But you all know better than to blindly dislike religion and faith. You all are totally fine with your friends that, when conflict with their faith arrises, will resolve to do the right thing.

    So, tieing this all back into the original thread topic... if your family is totally awesome in spite of what they believe... that's great. Just be happy you have family like that. A person's faith is one of the most indirect ways to attack them, wether religious or atheist. It's not good form, it's not productive, and it's... from my perspective, disingenous.

    But I see why we get there all the time. I see why that conflict permeates through every discussion. It frustrates me to no end, but I can see why it happens. Argue with all the "bad" arguments for creationism that you want. That's fine. But don't "conflate" (seems the favorite word for the past couple weeks) those people with reasonable people that have some sort of faith that they feel inspired by to do good things.

    Eh... this is what happens when I get back from a very weird night out.
  • This REALLY pisses people off. I don't get it. Go after Bible thumpers, not me.
    We're not pissed off, at least I'm not, I'd just like to better understand, and help you better understand, the issue. If anything comes across as angry, sorry about that.

    The simple fact is, pure, boolean logic does not apply, or at least I do not think it does. If I'm wrong then please tell me. Otherwise, we would have to live our lives never truly knowing anything.

    My question is, you seem like an intelligent person, yet what makes you fall on the side of God? I know it's your prerogative, I'm just truly curious. If it's because of faith, why does faith make sense? I know it's not evidence because you told me it wasn't.

    Is it that you actually just WANT there to be a God, and that its would be nice if there were one? Because if that's the case, no matter what you'd like, you're an Agnostic Atheist. You either believe, or you don't, there's not any middle ground. You can't kind of believe.
  • edited July 2012
    If there is not enough evidence to convict someone of a crime, they are not found "innocent." They are instead found "not guilty."

    Atheism is effectively a verdict of "not guilty" rather than "innocent." It is the rejection of a claim. It is not in itself a claim of the nonexistence of a god.

    The burden of proof is on the theists.
    Post edited by TheEvilTwin on
  • The Vatican has completely ordained priests that are scientists. Real scientists. With labs and shit. And they use the scientific method. Your argument is invalid.
  • It's a thread like this that makes me more sure that free will doesn't exist.
  • edited July 2012
    Eh, my position is relatively agnostic. I think it's extremely unlikely that any divinity exists
    See, I have much the same position, but I call it gnostic. To me (and I think this is in line with the meaning of the term "knowledge"), believing a statement to be extremely likely and having good reason to do so is equivalent to knowledge. For example, I also consider it to be extremely likely that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and that's also something I know. I think you're making an arbitrary distinction as to what constitutes knowledge - knowledge does not require certainty, for one thing. I'm definitely not certain that there are no god; indeed, I'm not certain of anything at all.
    What I don't understand is why anyone can't fathom that lack of evidence does not equal lack of thing. It's really just that simple. I don't tell you how to live. Well, not with God as an excuse, anyway. I don't expect anything from God because I don't know who God is. I don't attribute God motive or desire or function or will.
    What exactly is it that you associate the term "God" with? Even just the deist God has at least one function, and a motive to go with it.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • To me (and I think this is in line with the meaning of the term "knowledge"), believing a statement to be extremely likely and having good reason to do so is equivalent to knowledge. For example, I also consider it to be extremely likely that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and that's also something I know. I think you're making an arbitrary distinction as to what constitutes knowledge - knowledge does not require certainty, for one thing. I'm definitely not certain that there are no god; indeed, I'm not certain of anything at all.
    Clearly it depends on when and why we are communicating. It's an arbitrary line in as much as anything is an arbitrary line, but I think I'm justified here. I'm using the terms to mean exactly what they mean, IE: I'm using deductive language when I'm making a deductive statement, and inductive language when I'm making an inductive statement. Missing that step when debating philosophy will result in the comment on the last page where someone called upon an inductive fallacy innappropriately.

    I'll call upon the dread god Wittgenstein again and point to statements like "The Earth revolves around the Sun" in this example as a language problem. When someone makes that statement, we're secretly saying that "The Earth revolves around the Sun, IN SCIENCE!" I wouldn't argue with my physics professor on that statement. That's key context. And if you guys want to say you're all just saying "There's absolutely no god, IN SCIENCE!" I'm much more OK with that. Go forth and DO SCIENCE TO THINGS!

    But the debate so-far has been in the nebulous realm of actual language, and in that area everyone has the burden of making sure they communicate clearly. I screwed that up some at various points, I'm as lazy as anyone, but I think it's absolutely fair to require higher standards: especially when anyone could come by - read a thing - and become misinformed by that thing.
  • edited July 2012
    I'll call upon the dread god Wittgenstein again and point to statements like "The Earth revolves around the Sun" in this example as a language problem. When someone makes that statement, we're secretly saying that "The Earth revolves around the Sun, IN SCIENCE!" I wouldn't argue with my physics professor on that statement. That's key context. And if you guys want to say you're all just saying "There's absolutely no god, IN SCIENCE!" I'm much more OK with that. Go forth and DO SCIENCE TO THINGS!
    If anything, your addition of "IN SCIENCE" only makes those statements less clear. The Earth doesn't just revolve around the Sun in some faraway realm called "Science", it actually revolves around the Sun. As for "there is no god in science", well, that's even less clear; it has alternate meanings like "science has no use for a god" which is not the topic of discussion.
    But the debate so-far has been in the nebulous realm of actual language, and in that area everyone has the burden of making sure they communicate clearly.
    I think I've been clear enough. Every time I've use the word "know" it has been in line with standard usage of the term. It's the same meaning of the word that would apply if I told you "I know I have no socks on as I'm typing this post".
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • When someone makes that statement, we're secretly saying that "The Earth revolves around the Sun, IN SCIENCE!" I wouldn't argue with my physics professor on that statement. That's key context. And if you guys want to say you're all just saying "There's absolutely no god, IN SCIENCE!" I'm much more OK with that. Go forth and DO SCIENCE TO THINGS!
    But when we're looking at it like this, you don't have to say "In science" because it's understood. That's how the natural world works, and as far as we know, everything works within the boundaries of science.
  • Colloquial use of language and philosophical discourse are essentially seperate for me. The burden of knowledge is different colloquially, in science, and in philosophy. I "know" I drank too much last night. Colloquially, who would argue with that statement, it's as true as anything else? In science, we can test that as a hypothesis and attempt to verify it. In philosophy, that statement doesn't really mean much of anything, and I don't believe that counts as knowledge there.

    Context is magic.
  • When someone makes that statement, we're secretly saying that "The Earth revolves around the Sun, IN SCIENCE!" I wouldn't argue with my physics professor on that statement. That's key context. And if you guys want to say you're all just saying "There's absolutely no god, IN SCIENCE!" I'm much more OK with that. Go forth and DO SCIENCE TO THINGS!
    But when we're looking at it like this, you don't have to say "In science" because it's understood. That's how the natural world works, and as far as we know, everything works within the boundaries of science.
    So you follow that it's understood in that context. Great. So do I.

    The topic of debate here is squarely in the camp of philosophy for most of my experience with it. In this case, I (and many others) understand this argument primarily in the context of philosophical discourse. I think I can stand by that. If you want to debate this within another context, please feel free to inform me of that somewhere in the dialogue so I can be made aware. I think I'm being reasonable here, requesting clarity is generally good form in any communication.
  • So we're basically saying that, IN SCIENCE (Or in the entire known and observable universe), there's no God. It's doesn't make sense to believe in one.

    IN PHILOSOPHY, there's always room for anything to be possible, so you basically can't disprove anything anyone comes up with any more than anything else. Evidence and observation doesn't apply, because those are Science things.

    Right?
  • edited July 2012
    Eh, I think you don't know much about philosophy to make that statement. You can make any philosophical argument, but it's not like it's just random proselytizing of things. It includes formal logic and other tools that are pretty awesome at what they're there for, and on one level it may be the only subject where we can gain "knowledge" where it's absolute and not based on our observations. All of the fallacies, language about induction and deduction, and such are rooted in philosophy.

    I'm also not sure if making statements about "what makes sense to believe in" is really a thing you do when talking in scientific context. That's more of the bridge between science and psychology or philosophy. You can believe in whatever, it doesn't change the "real" or the "observable". It might color your perceptions of the observable, but not what is actually observable.

    Philosophy and math are essentially theoretical to sciences observable. It's rather important to note that for the majority of western history, they did conflate the three together. Philosophy was divided into things like natural philosophy, as in discussing the natural world. That basically became science. Language advancing and all that jazz.
    Post edited by Anthony Heman on
  • edited July 2012
    Colloquial use of language and philosophical discourse are essentially seperate for me. The burden of knowledge is different colloquially, in science, and in philosophy.
    Inconsistent use of terms can only serve to generate confusion, as it has in this case.
    I "know" I drank too much last night. Colloquially, who would argue with that statement, it's as true as anything else? In science, we can test that as a hypothesis and attempt to verify it. In philosophy, that statement doesn't really mean much of anything, and I don't believe that counts as knowledge there.
    I disagree. I think most reasonable philosophers would consider your statement to be knowledge - they should agree with this:
    That's a basic epistemological problem and is one you could pose to absolutely any question at all. In that sense, you don't "know" anything, and the word loses all meaning, as does this discussion.
    and consequently I'd think that they would stick with a meaning for the term that actually makes sense.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • edited July 2012
    Once again, context. Your burden for "makes sense" will need explanation. That's not really philosophy. It's either logical or not. And "philosophers" are a fickle group. If we told them that their frame of reference was "from Kant's perspective" as opposed to "from Socrates perspective" they would give you differing definitions of knowledge. I wouldn't go around naming them as a collective that has a single cohesive perspective.
    Post edited by Anthony Heman on
  • edited July 2012
    Once again, context. Your burden for "makes sense" will need explanation. That's not really philosophy. It's either logical or not. And "philosophers" are a fickle group. If we told them that their frame of reference was "from Kant's perspective" as opposed to "from Socrates perspective" they would give you differing definitions of knowledge. I wouldn't go around naming them as a collective that has a single cohesive perspective.
    I didn't; that's why I said "reasonable philosophers".

    As for "makes sense" - fine, I'll clarify it for you, though it really shouldn't be necessary; as far as I can tell you're just being pedantic and obstinate. Here goes:

    There is a real and relatively consistent way that people use the term "knowledge" in the real world. The question of what this phenomenon is, and the underlying mechanisms, is what lies at the core of epistemology (which is indeed a branch of philosophy). Yes, one could choose to use a meaning by which we don't "know" anything at all, as per philosophical skepticism, but that doesn't actually answer the above questions. It just means you need to come up with a new word in order to talk about them, or explain how it is that people have an illusion of knowledge despite not having any.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • I'm pedantic, but not obstinate.

    Knowledge is a subject long-debated in philosophy. I mean, for realsies. And defining some as reasonable and others as not doesn't really help. That was one of Kant's "things". Was he not the reasonable one? Or was it one of the other ones that's not reasonable? Oh right, Rationalism vs. Emperical.

    I will absolutely give you that the preference would be for terms that clearly communicate the degree of knowledge. And there are probably terms, I just don't know all of them. Language problems are a thing. I'm absolutely fine with clarifying.

    But how language is used in the "real world" isn't necessarily indicative of how we should use it to communicate in an area where there is a wealth of accumulated language and work that doesn't jive precisely with the coloquial use of the term.

    I'm willing to let the knowledge I was using previously get coined off as "absolute knowledge" or something. But on the same hand, I think it should be incredibly obvious that what we consider sufficient knowledge for science is different from what we consider sufficient knowledge for our day to day lives, and so-on. And when asked for clarity, it's always appropriate to provide it.

    I've read enough philosophy papers that I'm used to the author going into detail about the perspective and definitions they are using specific to their paper. It's a basic detail, but it's critical.
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