The Atheism Thread - Part 5

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Please, elaborate.
It seems as though you may be confusing "hypotheses" with "theories." When you're formulating a hypothesis, you're doing so independently of the results of its associated experiment. The only time this doesn't hold true is when you're explicitly testing a pre-existing hypothesis to confirm its validity.
 
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yes caste system as a means of division of labor and specialties. Not as a matter of attributing who was "higher" or not. It was the Brahmins and the warrior pundit classes that abuse the system to this date and use it as a form of power over others. The original intention was not intended at all for how it's been bastardized today.

The same abuse of power in any system or value system or attributes can be abused by high priests or religious elites in that particular faith/religion. Thousands of examples exist in this within Christianity, Islam and Judaism. This is the fundamental problem with organized religion.

Whether there is a God or not, fine that is a separate matter... the issue of spirituality regardless remains a personal one and should be left as so. Once organized religion comes into play then you have clans, groups, a "you're over there, i'm over here and i'm better" type attitude which is so naturalistic and sadly barbaric of us as a human race. We essentially devolve the beauty of what religion and faith are meant to our basic ape-like selves and more primate survivalist behaviors.
 
It seems as though you may be confusing "hypotheses" with "theories." When you're formulating a hypothesis, you're doing so independently of the results of its associated experiment. The only time this doesn't hold true is when you're explicitly testing a pre-existing hypothesis to confirm its validity.

A mix of trying to tie a short commentary together, and foreign words not having the exact same meaning when translated. :cwink:
 
yes caste system as a means of division of labor and specialties. Not as a matter of attributing who was "higher" or not. .
It's a very specific laid-out hierarchy, not surprisingly the Brahman/Brahmin/Brāhmaṇa aka the "priests" are on top. The highest ranking of the four varnas, or social classes in Hindu India.
keep-truckin-dude.gif
 
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I was thinking. If you really boil down the message of the Bible, it's this...

"...Oh, see you could've stayed blissful 'tards in the garden, but you had to eat the knowledge sh**! Okay, fine leave. But, ya know what, you're still a bunch of hairless Apes that're all gonna kill each other. Don't believe me! Here I'll send a guy to remind you. You all still all gonna die. I is coming to get ya!"

He's kind of right on that.
 
The great thing about being an atheist is: not only do you know none of it is true (thank God), but you know that one day, everyone will look back and think the same thing.

Though they'll probably have new gods.
 
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Sooooo....I found this.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/01/religion.uk


From early 2007 though. Basically it's about the struggles of Paganism coming back to Greece. And how the Christians in Greece are like ':cmad: you no come back, you go away, GO AWAY NOOOOOOOOOW'.


What is the athiest view point on this? And couldn't one say with a great depression there these days, that more and more people might be more willing to go back to anicent Gods and Goddesses, in attempt to hoepfully improve their lives? How do major religions overseas cope with hard times?
 
I think you should always keep an open mind. What I hate is people who shoot down religion as "stupid".

[YT]bBUc_kATGgg[/YT]

Also... talking snakes, talking donkeys, unicorns, invisible sky-daddies, demigods/superhumans, giants, impossible creation stories, deities can't ever lose, insistence on NO QUESTIONS!, "mystery"...

Sounds kinda stupid to me.

Sooooo....I found this.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/01/religion.uk


From early 2007 though. Basically it's about the struggles of Paganism coming back to Greece. And how the Christians in Greece are like ':cmad: you no come back, you go away, GO AWAY NOOOOOOOOOW'.


What is the athiest view point on this? And couldn't one say with a great depression there these days, that more and more people might be more willing to go back to anicent Gods and Goddesses, in attempt to hoepfully improve their lives? How do major religions overseas cope with hard times?

The Christians need to shut up and let them have their Paganism.
 
Greeks should love pagans. Without all those pagan temples the country would be... oh wait, it's already broke.

Well, still, pagan ruins bring in a **** load of money for Greece.
 
Well, how can one prove that a table is a table? You can only prove your own existence.
I'm not very good at this whole explaining thing, and I'm really sorry for it :woot: what I'm trying to get across is that no person can definitely and truly prove anything. That's why scientists call their ideas "theories". Science is pretty much faith, as is religion.


These statements aren't true for many reasons. Obviously, what immediately comes to mind is that mah/geometry/et al. can be proved. That's because "proof" is a mathematical term. Thus the notion, "all you can prove is your own existence" is false. There are, indeed, other things, that is, numbers.

However, I really shouldn't say "there are other things" rather than "there are things" when the notion of proving one's own existence is false in the first place. That is, even Descartes over stepped his bounds when he said, "Cognito Ergo Sum". The more accurate conclusion to his line of reasoning in Discourse and Meditations is the Buddhist's, "I think, therefore there are thoughts." And even that may not be QED. For one, Descartes doesn't prove 100% QED that it is a "I" that thinks or exists. For that, like mathematics, it would have to demonstrate that the opposite of what it states is a contradiction, and that the "I" would have to be necessarily true in all possible worlds. But as an objection to both the Buddhists and Descartes, we can easily imagine a possible world with no "I" or "thoughts". A possible world without numbers is impossible. The number 1 cannot be destroyed or afftected by material destruction or creation. 1ness, 2ness, 3ness, et al stands as a necessary fact no matter what you call it ,or whether you try to think it away.

Another thing to consider in objection to Descartes is Hume's Bundle Theory, which proposes that we could be nothing but the sensation of parts giving illusion to an "I". (Even from a purely physicalist point of view, Roger Sperry's experiments in split-brain research give me reason to pause in shock over exactly what "I" am.) So if a complexity of thoughts can come together and give the illusion of a manifested being, that manifestation would therefore be an illusion. This view is plausible as there's nothing saying it is inherently in contradiction with itself. Thus as this alternate view is plausible contrary to "Cognito Ergo Sum", it stands that "Cognito Ergo Sum" is not proven.

But that aside and to answer your claim, yes, holding science or religion to a mathematical criteria would result in both positions failing to be proven in the sense that an opposing view of their existence could be plausible, and they are not necessarily unaffectable facts. However, this does not follow from your claim that if you don't believe in God then you can't believe science. This would have to assume an all or nothing sense of establishing fact. That if two facts can't reach 100% certainty, then they equally must be dismissed or at least be on even terms. This does not follow. This is like claiming that because many things move slower than the maximum speed limit of the universe, that either nothing moves or at least those slower things move at the same rate. It's a false-dichotomy. Though almost everything is subject to doubt and must be believed, that is not to say that everything is equally doubtful and that somethings aren't less believable than others as you even admit when you say--

I do accept that science has allot more evidence, and is much more plausible than religion. But I still stand by that it is possible that a God could exist, and you cannot prove science.


Which is in stark contrast to the more extreme claim that--

Remember, if you don't believe in God, you can't really "believe" in science.

No matter what you mean by that second "believe", it makes that statement false for the following reasons: If you mean it in the same sense of "belief" as you refer to when talking about believing in God, that statement falls to the errors I just described. If you mean it in a stronger sense of the same definition (e.g. faster is a stronger term for fast), then it also falls again to the same error I described; as I said, just because not all things move the fastest possible speed, does not mean things can't move faster than others, in fact, some things can not move fast at all, making them something we wouldn't call fast. If you mean it in another definitional sense, that statement doesn't follow since you're using a second meaning of "belief" to equivocate with the first creating a non sequitur in your logic; e.g. Nothing is better than getting every thing you want. Having a job you do not want is better than "nothing". Therefore, having a job you do not want is better than getting everything you want.

I certainly don't believe in God in the traditional sense, but I do accept that there may be something out there that created all this.

If you're speaking in possibilities, this is called Agnosticism. Almost all Atheists are Agnostics. The terms don't mutually exclude. But just because something is logically possible does not mean it is true, or that belief in it as true is just as jusified as belief in anything else.
 
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Sooooo....I found this.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/01/religion.uk


From early 2007 though. Basically it's about the struggles of Paganism coming back to Greece. And how the Christians in Greece are like ':cmad: you no come back, you go away, GO AWAY NOOOOOOOOOW'.


What is the athiest view point on this?

I'm an American and a Liberal. Though I don't encourage religion, I'm for people choosing their own beliefs so long as they don't use their beliefs as a justification to violate the freedom of others. "I don't agree with what you say, but I'll defend with my life your right to say it," as a fan of Voltaire once said.
 
I know some religions really takes the high road on that one ...oh wait.

Psalm 14:1 - The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.

Double standard, Nice!

There can be "stupid" "fool" name callers on both sides. :BA:oldrazz:



770c5dd4ae9cc445fb73c443e564f32c

I think there are many "fools" on both sides. I certainly know some *****e bag Christians.
 
And as a I said clearly earlier, there are many such social hierarchical systems present in all such religions... all high priests of all religions "remain at the top" rendering your point completely invalid.

The point of the original system was a means devised of jobs, that's what it is, get over it.
 
These statements aren't true for many reasons. Obviously, what immediately comes to mind is that mah/geometry/et al. can be proved. That's because "proof" is a mathematical term. Thus the notion, "all you can prove is your own existence" is false. There are, indeed, other things, that is, numbers.

However, I really shouldn't say "there are other things" rather than "there are things" when the notion of proving one's own existence is false in the first place. That is, even Descartes over stepped his bounds when he said, "Cognito Ergo Sum". The more accurate conclusion to his line of reasoning in Discourse and Meditations is the Buddhist's, "I think, therefore there are thoughts." And even that may not be QED. For one, Descartes doesn't prove 100% QED that it is a "I" that thinks or exists. For that, like mathematics, it would have to demonstrate that the opposite of what it states is a contradiction, and that the "I" would have to be necessarily true in all possible worlds. But as an objection to both the Buddhists and Descartes, we can easily imagine a possible world with no "I" or "thoughts". A possible world without numbers is impossible. The number 1 cannot be destroyed or afftected by material destruction or creation. 1ness, 2ness, 3ness, et al stands as a necessary fact no matter what you call it ,or whether you try to think it away.

Another thing to consider in objection to Descartes is Hume's Bundle Theory, which proposes that we could be nothing but the sensation of parts giving illusion to an "I". (Even from a purely physicalist point of view, Roger Sperry's experiments in split-brain research give me reason to pause in shock over exactly what "I" am.) So if a complexity of thoughts can come together and give the illusion of a manifested being, that manifestation would therefore be an illusion. This view is plausible as there's nothing saying it is inherently in contradiction with itself. Thus as this alternate view is plausible contrary to "Cognito Ergo Sum", it stands that "Cognito Ergo Sum" is not proven.

But that aside and to answer your claim, yes, holding science or religion to a mathematical criteria would result in both positions failing to be proven in the sense that an opposing view of their existence could be plausible, and they are not necessarily unaffectable facts. However, this does not follow from your claim that if you don't believe in God then you can't believe science. This would have to assume an all or nothing sense of establishing fact. That if two facts can't reach 100% certainty, then they equally must be dismissed or at least be on even terms. This does not follow. This is like claiming that because many things move slower than the maximum speed limit of the universe, that either nothing moves or at least those slower things move at the same rate. It's a false-dichotomy. Though almost everything is subject to doubt and must be believed, that is not to say that everything is equally doubtful and that somethings aren't less believable than others as you even admit when you say--




Which is in stark contrast to the more extreme claim that--



No matter what you mean by that second "believe", it makes that statement false for the following reasons: If you mean it in the same sense of "belief" as you refer to when talking about believing in God, that statement falls to the errors I just described. If you mean it in a stronger sense of the same definition (e.g. faster is a stronger term for fast), then it also falls again to the same error I described; as I said, just because not all things move the fastest possible speed, does not mean things can't move faster than others, in fact, some things can not move fast at all, making them something we wouldn't call fast. If you mean it in another definitional sense, that statement doesn't follow since you're using a second meaning of "belief" to equivocate with the first creating a non sequitur in your logic; e.g. Nothing is better than getting every thing you want. Having a job you do not want is better than "nothing". Therefore, having a job you do not want is better than getting everything you want.



If you're speaking in possibilities, this is called Agnosticism. Almost all Atheists are Agnostics. The terms don't mutually exclude. But just because something is logically possible does not mean it is true, or that belief in it as true is just as jusified as belief in anything else.
Yes, I agree. I see why my point was flawed.
I'm a newbe with all this "arguing points" business, but I love a good debate, and my Dad is teaching me :woot:
My stance is that I do not believe in any religious viewing of God, and I don't even believe in God. However, I believe there COULD be a creator, and that what I know as "science" right now COULD be wrong.
 
Is none of the above an option when it comes to this stuff? It's like I'm just open to everything, all religions could be true or there could be just nothing to em and science is real or science and religion can both exist. I've just never understood why contradicting ideology has to mean that it's either this way or it's that way. Why can't just what anyone chooses to believe be real? Why does evolution have to negate intelligent design? Couldn't a creator have created evolution? I have just never understood why people just take all this stuff so to heart. It's like politics, it's just not my thing. Don't care, take it or leave it I don't care. Life is so much simpler that way
 
Why does evolution have to negate intelligent design?
Like other scientific theories, evolution is an explanatory model. It says that survival/reproductive success is the automatic, naturalistic force that drives genetic variation. So, external “intelligent” manipulation of the process is an unnecessary postulate - because it provides nothing new that the original theory requires. Moreover - a mysterious “intelligent design” agent is a type of deus ex machina; it lacks explanatory power and, therefore, fails as scientific model.
 
So... odd thing happened to me today. Today, I decided to break my vegetarian diet because, frankly, with my genes, I feel I just cannot balance a veggie diet and working out at the gym without feeling like I'm going to die. I feel it's immoral to eat animals that can appreciate pain more than other animals when we don't have to, but I cannot maintain this lifestyle. I think I'm acting immorally, but it can't be helped. To get on with this short story, I finally place my order for a fish sandwhich and... my order number was 666. No joke. What the heck, right? Even as an atheist I find it the chances of me getting a 666 order number on the exact day I was about to break one of my moral principles pretty crazy. I'm sure it was just a coincidence, because why would the Judeo-Christian God give me a 666 warning sign to prevent me from eating meat when nothing of the sort was forbidden in Christian literature? But still, pretty crazy.
 
I'd prefer Pagans honestly. Let's bring back the pagans.

:yay: smile, you just met one.

But I'm not the best one or honest one, only been one for about a year...I've grown over this time. As of today, this is what I believe in...

Praying to Mother Earth, Goddess Gaia, Eros, one of the Greek Gods of 'love'. Pretty new to Eros though.
 
So... odd thing happened to me today. Today, I decided to break my vegetarian diet because, frankly, with my genes, I feel I just cannot balance a veggie diet and working out at the gym without feeling like I'm going to die. I feel it's immoral to eat animals that can appreciate pain more than other animals when we don't have to, but I cannot maintain this lifestyle. I think I'm acting immorally, but it can't be helped. To get on with this short story, I finally place my order for a fish sandwhich and... my order number was 666. No joke. What the heck, right? Even as an atheist I find it the chances of me getting a 666 order number on the exact day I was about to break one of my moral principles pretty crazy. I'm sure it was just a coincidence, because why would the Judeo-Christian God give me a 666 warning sign to prevent me from eating meat when nothing of the sort was forbidden in Christian literature? But still, pretty crazy.

The human mind likes to point out coincidences, because we love ourselves a little mystique. However, it often, probably willingly, forgets the uncountable times such coincidences doesn't happen.

And by the way, please don't diminish yourself by being a vegan..
 
The human mind likes to point out coincidences, because we love ourselves a little mystique. However, it often, probably willingly, forgets the uncountable times such coincidences doesn't happen.

Yeah, I agree. I never thought about taking this encounter seriously, but I thought it was still pretty crazy. Crazy enough to relate to the forums, at least.

And by the way, please don't diminish yourself by being a vegan..

What do you mean?
 
I'm not a big fan of vegetarians, let's just leave it at that!
 
Well, I won't probe into why if this won't make for healthy discussion... but without a reason, you must understand I can't consider if I ought to consider your suggestion.
 
Is none of the above an option when it comes to this stuff? It's like I'm just open to everything, all religions could be true or there could be just nothing to em and science is real or science and religion can both exist. I've just never understood why contradicting ideology has to mean that it's either this way or it's that way. Why can't just what anyone chooses to believe be real? Why does evolution have to negate intelligent design? Couldn't a creator have created evolution? I have just never understood why people just take all this stuff so to heart. It's like politics, it's just not my thing. Don't care, take it or leave it I don't care. Life is so much simpler that way

Considering they themselves say that's impossible... they most certainly can not be.

Evolution soundly refutes creationism (as do most sciences). Intelligent design, which is just a term they come up with to sneak creationism back into the classroom, at no point suggests any intelligent-driven evolution. It discounts evolution entirely.
 
Well, I won't probe into why if this won't make for healthy discussion... but without a reason, you must understand I can't consider if I ought to consider your suggestion.

This is the internet, healthy discussions don't exist :whatever:
 
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