Demonize? That's your department. I was just calling religious people retarded.
Conspiracy Theories and Athiesm
- Thread starter Deliguy
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Demonize? That's your department. I was just calling religious people retarded.
Emp,
You sound like a reasonable guy that's why I'm responded to this. Plus, you studied engineering right? This means you've probably had years of formal, left-brained analytical thinking.
Firstly, I'm not going to address the bible part because as I said, it is not a scientific document.
The point that I have made above has to do with science. If you consider yourself an atheist, we can just end the conversation because atheism is not based on rationality - neither is christianity.
You will find no logical argument to refute the above supposition because it is based on immutable facts.
Here are my premises:
1) Beliefs are based on evidence - empirical or experiential (premise 1)
2) Quantum Physics destroyed the notional of reductionist, determinism being practical. In other words, the old world newtonian view of reality asserts that you are either "dead or alive", something is either "up or down", "this way or that way", etc. etc. (premise 2)
Heisenberg's uncertainty work and the pretty much mainstream acceptance of wave particle duality (ex. the double split experiment) shows that we live in a world of not FIXED FACTS but of PROBABILITIES.
So, what is a probability? It is a likelihood - where if L=the likelihood of something occurring L will ALWAYS BE less than or equal to 0. In other words, less than 100%.
3) Therefore, if all beliefs are based on evidence and if the probabilities associated with the veracity of that evidence BY THE LAWS OF PHYSICS are always less than 100%, this means that EVERYONE is accepting something as true, for which THEY DO NOT HAVE 100% EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR.
This is simple, short-bus socratic/aristotlean logic.
What I have said is that there is enough SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that would leave any TRULY OPEN MINDED PERSON to be agnostic. Agnosticism is simply KNOWING, KNOWLEDGE - atheism, christianity, etc. is about personal beliefs.
An agnostic does not say that a "god" as such exists. And neither does he or she assert that one DOES EXIST.
An atheist, by definition, based on the evidence that they accept as true, believes that no god exists.
A believe, by definition, based on the evidence that they accept as true, believes a god exists.
But I will give anyone on this board $1,000 if they can find enough SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH sufficient enough to nullify an agnostic worldview.
Why do you think on science boards - this is an internet marketing board, I would imagine few -professional physical scientists are here (myself included, though I was raised by scientists...)
Why do you think they present these rules:
Religious Discussion Guidelines:
Discussions that assert the a priori truth or falsity of religious dogmas and belief systems, or value judgments stemming from such religious belief systems, will not be tolerated. As a rule of thumb, some topics pertaining to religion might be permissible if they are discussed in such a way so as to remain neutral on the truth of, or value judgments stemming from, religious belief systems.
Get that? - NOTHING true or false surrounding the existence of a god as such is SCIENTIFIC FACTS.
Anyone who wants to assert that they are an atheist (or a christian for that matter) based on "the facts of science" is not being FACTUAL.
Because the "facts of science" assert NO APRIORI TRUTH OR FALSITY on this matter....
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This is the attitude of individuals who truly have an open mind and understand the nature of scientific truth. So as I said, I don't have a problem with anyone who chooses to believe what they believe - atheist, humanist, agnostic, christian, hindu, etc.
But the absolute reality of the PHYSICAL FACTS is that anyone who asserts the falsity of a "God" is NOT basing this on the irrefutable FACTS of science, they are basing it on PERSONAL BELIEFS.
If you can find one peer-reviewed piece of research to refute any of these premises, I am all ears.....
As I said before I don't really indulge in passionate, emotional conversations about religions with hard core christians or "firm" atheists because personal belief are not rational, therefore it is hardly productive to discuss them.
However, for those who have an open mind and are COMMITTED TO SCIENTIFIC TRUTH this subject is absolutely and fundamentally a legit one....
I know this as addressed to emp but...
The above is where your position goes to hell.
An agnostic claims no knowledge of the christian god. Period. That is the definition. They are the literal antithesis to the Gnostics, which were a sect that claimed "special" knowledge of the Christan god.
I am am agnostic because I do not claim to have any knowledge of the Christian god.
And atheist do not believe that not go exists. Theism is the belief in a god or gods. There's mono-theism, multi-theism, etc. Each of those belief systems has subscribers called theists.
Atheists on the other hand do not believe any of the belief systems put forward. They are all equally lacking in evidence. Atheism is not a belief. It is a lack of belief in the claims thus far.
To make an analogy - let's say there were people who believed in balloons. Some people believed in red balloons - some in green - some in both purple and yellow. None of these people could produce proof of a balloon.
The Aballoonists do not believe in balloons - red, green, yellow, or purple - because there is no proof. However, if an orange balloon showed up one day we'd consider it.
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^^ Sorry, but those are not factual statements you've made. When I facts I mean "can be verified or falsified based on the scientific method".
Definition of agnostic I refer to, and verified by said method using definition from the princeton dictionary:
Definitions of agnostic on the Web:
- someone who is doubtful or noncommittal about something
- of or pertaining to an agnostic or agnosticism
- a person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but does not deny that God might exist)
- uncertain of all claims to knowledge
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
You can review them here from a cambridge university diagram:
Nothing you've stated demontrates any logically sound objections to my premises. Therefore the conclusion cannot be nullified - simple logic and use of objective, scientific principles.
Q.E.D.
Just to let you know, it's not physically possible to have a "lack" of a believe. Beliefs are absolute - just like a thought. One is ALWAYS thinking something - I think, Therefore I am....."O's and 1's".
From a scientific (psychology) standpoint, a "belief" is a premise that has been accepted as true.
My statement about belief is supported by evidence: the definition of belief accepted by both psychology:
Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beliefs
Q.E.D
I did not study engineering, but psychology and computer science.
I might be tired right now, but nothing of what you says is moving anything anywhere. Just big words being pushed around.
There are basic premises I do not agree with.
1st of all "there can not be no belief."
A thought is not a belief.
You believe in something WITHOUT evidence.
That is not a world view I subscribe to.
What you are doing here is taking the psychological definiton of a term "belief" and applying it to the spiritual meaning "belief", which, in psychology is NOT the same thing.
Belief (as a term in psychology) != Belief as in "spiritual belief"
::emp::
I might be tired right now, but nothing of what you says is moving anything anywhere. Just big words being pushed around.
There are basic premises I do not agree with.
1st of all "there can not be no belief."
A thought is not a belief.
You believe in something WITHOUT evidence.
That is not a world view I subscribe to.
What you are doing here is taking the psychological definiton of a term "belief" and applying it to the spiritual meaning "belief", which, in psychology is NOT the same thing.
Belief (as a term in psychology) != Belief as in "spiritual belief"
::emp::
Here's what it boils down to,
No event in history ever happened to discount the indifference of our universe and going on billions of years of past experience, none ever will. Some people can deal with this, while some can't contemplate this uncaring reality. (I admit it's a hard pill to swallow if you have problems in your life, and you should go on believing someone cares about you and your problems if it helps you not annihilate your genes with a slug in your palate.)
This ego version of the universe was much more pronounced when we didn't know much about it. Hence all the false but "fuzzy feeling" religious theories like the sun revolving around us. Religion fought, screamed and kicked for the Earth to keep revolving around the sun, but cold hard reality kept staring the most ardent believers until they were left with nothing but a piece of information which was dead wrong.
If religion hadn't been there, scientific theories that consist of logic and testable theories would of took off like a rocket, but all these people still sucking on gods nipple refused to let go of their belief and hindered the progress of striking it good on a blind date with reality.
The point I'm trying to make is no one ever accomplished anything profound by doing or believing what everyone else believes in. How would of Einstein went on to discover another piece of the universe if he was indoctrinated that the universe is 6000 years old? He wouldn't of, unless he FOUGHT with the idea that it isn't.
How is a child's mind suppose to prosper if it's filled with so much trash in it's infancy that the battle for reality is a life long one? A perpetual trap of delusions kept together by a weak web of fears, emotions and disregard for logic. Insuring the stagnant place for yet another human being who was instructed to believe authority rather than scrutinize it.
Oh god, please save the children from this perpetual cycle of ignorance based on beliefs, the weakest attribute of human kind. It has its advantages but much like sickle cells, but hardcore beliefs come packed with a bigger downfall than whatever evolutionary advantage they ever offered.
No event in history ever happened to discount the indifference of our universe and going on billions of years of past experience, none ever will. Some people can deal with this, while some can't contemplate this uncaring reality. (I admit it's a hard pill to swallow if you have problems in your life, and you should go on believing someone cares about you and your problems if it helps you not annihilate your genes with a slug in your palate.)
This ego version of the universe was much more pronounced when we didn't know much about it. Hence all the false but "fuzzy feeling" religious theories like the sun revolving around us. Religion fought, screamed and kicked for the Earth to keep revolving around the sun, but cold hard reality kept staring the most ardent believers until they were left with nothing but a piece of information which was dead wrong.
If religion hadn't been there, scientific theories that consist of logic and testable theories would of took off like a rocket, but all these people still sucking on gods nipple refused to let go of their belief and hindered the progress of striking it good on a blind date with reality.
The point I'm trying to make is no one ever accomplished anything profound by doing or believing what everyone else believes in. How would of Einstein went on to discover another piece of the universe if he was indoctrinated that the universe is 6000 years old? He wouldn't of, unless he FOUGHT with the idea that it isn't.
How is a child's mind suppose to prosper if it's filled with so much trash in it's infancy that the battle for reality is a life long one? A perpetual trap of delusions kept together by a weak web of fears, emotions and disregard for logic. Insuring the stagnant place for yet another human being who was instructed to believe authority rather than scrutinize it.
Oh god, please save the children from this perpetual cycle of ignorance based on beliefs, the weakest attribute of human kind. It has its advantages but much like sickle cells, but hardcore beliefs come packed with a bigger downfall than whatever evolutionary advantage they ever offered.
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