Any atheists in here?
POSTED BY: BlackCollarBrowncoat
UPDATED: Sunday, March 12, 2006 20:19
VIEWED: 38267
PAGE 13 of 18
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It's also relatively meaningless, because it's impossible to prove a negative.
Civility is not about profanity or name calling, it's about respect. You keep throwing bullshit at me, that's not respectful. So long as you keep it up I'll stick on your level, everyone else can grab the popcorn.
I can prove that there is no finite set containing all primes, I can prove that there is no dog at my left elbow, I can prove a hell of a lot of negitives.
Yet you insist on calling it impossible. That's not a question of god, it's a question of logic. If you are right than logic is wrong. If logic is wrong than what are we supposed to base our beliefs on?
Tradition? Whims? What I hear in dreams?
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Originally posted by SergeantX:Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
...I'm not saying this should stop, I'm just saying be civil.
You're lecturing me on being civil?!!
After your tirade in response to my last post, I'd decided to give it a break. I didn't see what I'd done to set you off,
Well you badmouthed the foundations of logic science and mathematics in what should have been a theological discussion.
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But you keep pushing harder, repeating the same fallacious arguments. Then you have the nerve to accuse others of doing exactly what you're doing.
When did I say that people who call themselves hard atheists have a belief system that never has any point?
When did I say that not believing in something, say a pattern governing the distribution of prime numbers (prime numbers are so useful in discussions of logic), is the same as believing in the opposite of it, the lack of such a pattern?
Which is a siginifcant portion of what I have accused you of.
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You are the one arguing from a point of assumption.
Yeah, I assume that logic exists, I assume that cause follows effect, I assume that my senses are an adequate way to interpret the state of the world unless compelling evidence contradicts them. I also assume that anyone (myself for example) who can back up their beliefs with neither proof NOR evidence is acting on faith.
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You assume god's existence and state that it's up to non-believers to prove you wrong.
No I don’t ask a damn thing of the non-believers. I support non-believers as having a position far more logical than my own. I simply believe it is more logical than yours as well.
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That flys in the face of basic logic and undermines whatever point you're trying to make.
How does it? I ask people who take one stance to support their claims, I ask people who take the opposite stance to support their point, and I ask nothing of those who do not take a stance.
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But you insist on going further, making the unsupported leap to conclude that atheists are acting on faith in the same way that believers are - that atheism is a religion. That's completely unfounded.
If you didn't notice I'm not claiming it's a religion, that discussion has been hypothetical for all but two posts. I do however maintain that atheists have more in common religiously speaking than a "greater Buddhist" (one who believes Buddha is god) and a Muslim, both of which are theists.
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If pointing out why I disagree is something you find insulting and inspires you to launch into more angry ad hominem attacks, so be it.
Not done that. Calling you a bastard is hardly trying to discredit your argument based on the merit of your character. Everyone with a brain knows that the content of a person’s character has nothing to do with the validity of that person’s character.
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All you've proven on this thread is that you are a first-class asshole and incapable of discussing anything that doesn't fit your personal belief system.
Would you consider that an ad hominem attack or is there a double standard in place there too? I wouldn't consider it one, but it seems to meet your definition.
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By the
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Originally posted by christhecynic:
Then change your argument so that it does not provoke that response...The way to make people stop saying that is to base your argument on a different assumption, preferably one we can all agree with, physical laws are usually a good basis. The human being's ability to perceive the universe is also generally considered a good start.
Well:
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Originally posted by Britet:
...the only thing you have to have faith in in order to claim “god does not exist” is your own perception, and your ability to make sense of the world and say/think meaningful things about it. If you're going to deny this, then you'd be forced mute in principle; you couldn't say anything about anything without being a hypocrite.
I was, based on my perception and general experience with the world, noticing....all the things I described in previous posts. The only other assumptions I made (and they're not so much assumptions as conclusions, again drawn from experience) that we can trust anthropology, archaeology, biology, and anything grounded in the scientific method. These of course are not infallible, but have proven to be the most effective and accurate means we have of making sense of and parsing the phenomena we experience, and the history leading up to the now.
btw, I still have yet to hear an argument, not already assuming god's existence, for the other side (apart, that is, from the argument by design, which you didn't really seem to espouse yourself and which I addressed indirectly already).
"If God can do anything, could he microwave a burrito so hot, even he could not eat it?"
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Originally posted by rue:
Therefore, atheism is not a religion (belief in god).
You're late to the show, we've gone beyond that.
The current debate is on at least two fields (I say at least two because it's sped up, I'm not fully up to date.)
One claims that there is no point in believing that something doesn't exist and the distinction between hard atheists (those who believe there is no god) and soft atheists (those who lack belief in god) is fictional.
The other is about whether or not gathering evidence for a thing by assuming that thing is correct is a valid method for deciding whether or not to believe in that thing. (When done outside of a strictly logical argument.)
For example if I start by believing that a robot named Chompers (yes that is the name of a real robot, it weighs in at 120lbs) does not have a controller, or perhaps never consider the possibility that it does, and then find that I do not need to introduce a controller to explain events is that a reason for believing the controller doesn't exist if I never consider the alternative?
I'll see if I can find a picture of Chompers.
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Originally posted by britet:
I was, based on my perception and general experience with the world, noticing....all the things I described in previous posts.
But the those things only support your stance if taken with the assumption that god does not exist.
That's where the problem arises. It isn't about how you gather the evidence, but rather how you evaluate it and how you evaluate what evidence is worthy of consideration. I mean the Mormons are being attacked by bugs and the seagulls come in, they think the evidence worthy of evaluation is the fact that they prayed and the prayers were answered. I've always thought the migratory pattern of seagulls was more important.
Such a skewed decision making process works both ways though.
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btw, I still have yet to hear an argument, not already assuming god's existence, for the other side
That's because the other side admits faith. You believe things without evidence that can be accepted as solid by other atheists and yet claim lack of faith, the other side, my side, claims faith.
I don't argue for god because I don't see the point. I'm not trying to shake your faith or convert the infidels. I only ask for honesty.
I ask that those who base things on faith admit it.
If you want to know why I personally believe it's because
1 I already do (after having gone through both hard and soft atheism.)
2 I've been given no reason to change that belief.
3 When I take a sampling of events that are religious in nature which have been scientifically explained I see a mathematically disgusting situation which, while it can be explained as an example of the statistical phenomena of grouping, feels (very unscientific word) more like an unnamed factor to me. I choose to give that factor a name.
No proof. No more evidence than you have, but I don’t claim a reason for belief.
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(apart, that is, from the argument by design, which you didn't really seem to espouse yourself and which I addressed indirectly already).
Intelligent design claims that god is such an inept bastard that the processes he (they all seem to believe god is male) created were so incredibly inefficient that they could never possibly succeed without his help.
While I don't claim that it is impossible that such a useless being exists I do not believe in it and if I did I would try to find a way to make myself stop believing just to piss the inept one off.
The universe as we know it is elegant, the universe as they claim it is something that is incapable of maintaining that elegance without help, which is decidedly inelegant. Hardly an Intelligent Design. An intelligently designed would universe would be able to be explained without talking about the creator. It would be self sufficient and have a way for the creator (if it so chose) to work without breaking the rules.
Most IDers hate people who actually believe in such a universe. I mean after all such a universe would eliminate the ability to prove god because god wouldn't have left footprints.
What they fail to understand is that if we had discovered there were letters 500 miles high on the back side of the moon that spelled (in English) the words, "There is a god," which had been there for longer than the English language had existed it would not prove god exists. (Or even prior knowledge of English.)
It would be grouping (the statistical phenomena I mentioned before.) Coincidence and nothing more. You can't prove god, if god shows up it doesn't prove god, it just proves that some powerful being claiming to be god exists. They try so hard but even if Jesus walked around with a full halo and let people poke his wounds on global television while scientists showed that he was indeed born of a virgin 2000 years ago it wouldn't prove god.
Some things can't be done, proof of god is one of them. I have a friend who is a devout hard atheist and I once asked him what it would take for him to believe and I heard the answer I expected, nothing could do
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ChrisC
Oh OK. I have not been managing to get to the board often. I was trying to get around the debate by using a different analysis.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Zeke, you've got a lot to learn. I'm still working my way down but I had to reply.
Studies recently published show that toddlers as young as 18 months will observe an adult and go over to help if it looks (to them) like the adult needs help. For example, if the adult deliberately pushed a book off a stack while 'trying' to stack them, the toddler would not go over. However, if the adult 'accidentally' dropped a book the toddler would go over and pick up the book and hand it to the adult. This was without the adult either asking for help, looking at the toddler, or thanking the toddler afterwards. And in fact, toddlers, would repeatedly go over to help in the face of non-requests, non-responses.
And simple examination of human physiology shows that helping has to be a basic human drive. From the helplessness of infants (and their burdened mothers) to the accumulation of learning, human survival is ultimately impossible without the existance of a cooperative group.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Haze,
I too was Catholic until I realized that a god like that arbitrary capricious god I was supposed to believe in was not a god I would believe in, even if it meant eternal damnation.
The other thing I realized much later in life is that western religion is based on a severe self-contradiction: god is unknowable, but you have to listen to us 'cause we know what god wants.
I think we came down a similar path.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Well, I went through the entire thread, though I probably missed some points. I have not thought about this topic much, so pardon if my responses lack detail. I'm thinking as I'm going.
I want to reiterate what I started out with - when it comes to reality I'm - lazy? pragmatic?
SignyM mentioned that no one can prove reality. Practically, will I test the reality of the bus coming at me by turning my back and plugging my ears? Even with "cogito ergo sum" I don't know I'm not part of a dream where the dreamer dreams that I think I'm real.
So certain things I take on 'faith', which are that I exist, and that as imperfectly as I sense it, there is a reality of which I am part, and that it moves of its own accord. Also I 'believe' that there is cause and effect (macroscopically) in regular relation to each other.
These are the rough and ready axioms I settled on.
Given that, I see science as the testing of those perceptions about the world against more perceptions. As was mentioned above, that's what makes science different from religion. Science looks for regularity of perceptions and devises a model - not to be confused with reality - and extends the model to other perceivable phenomenon. (As a scientist, I find irony in the statement 'consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds')
Religion OTOH is all about NOT testing belief in the 'real world' of perception. Religion is about faith, which is specifically required to be in the absense of perceivable phenomena, or in the presence of contrary perceivable phenomena.
The other thing I think is that it is impossible to positively prove something either negative or positive. To positively prove something you would have to test all of existance for all of time including every infinitesimally small period. So it's impossible to prove that god exists, as it's impossible to prove that god doesn't exist. And to base an argument on 'prove to me god doesn't exist' is as fruitless as 'prove to me god does exist'. (OTOH it's easier to disprove the null hypothesis - you only have to find one instance where it isn't true to disprove.)
So I found the whole argument about proving or disproving faith to be a blind alley.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Well put Rue, thats pretty much exactly where I was coming from.
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Who do you suppose is in there?
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Originally posted by rue:
And to base an argument on 'prove to me god doesn't exist' is as fruitless as 'prove to me god does exist'.
Which is my point. Some people seem to dislike that incredibly. I think it is the first "as" that pisses them off, though I can not be sure.
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