[forelander]

Originally Posted by Demoniac

God damn reason. I keep thinking about morals and 'faith' itself. So far as maths go, i do agree personally, but im not going to go out of my way to prove someone else wrong. I honestly dont think it matters, and why should I?

I mean, look at it like i said before as well, they have every right to say what they think because to them, science is a myth. There are people who are in the middle, but the ones making statements like taht are gnerally the ones who do think of science as a bunch of crap. Its all about perception, and you cant 'disprove' someone elses perception of the world. Its not going to happen if they dont want it to, so why bother. Just let them believe it.

That kind of thinking is exactly what led to the extinction and enslavement of entire races: "Oh they're just savages and their beliefs are wrong." And so they were enslaved, brainwashed, and their culture destroyed for no other reason than other peoples arrogance in their own belief system, and complete refusal to accept and understand another set of beliefs. The world is full of conflicting ideals and concepts, just live with it, because there will never be a single, 'perfect' belief.

I believe that science is more or less right. Im not a big fan of religion. But they can have their beliefs regardless of how ridiculous they seem to me.

I'll not go out of my way to prove someone is wrong either, just trying to shed some light as to where Jongpil might be coming from.

I don't agree that anyone is justified in arguing science is a bunch of crap or a system of beliefs. There's a lot more to it than making something up and saying "I believe in this therefore it is valid." A main part of this is the encouragement of advancement, refinement and validation, something many 'beliefs' seem to lack.

All I'm getting at is there is a point where belief and fact (can't prove anything, I know, blah blah, but for all intents and purposes let's just accept some things to be true) should be separate of each other. As I say, I can believe 2 + 2 = 5 and that earth's gravity is an equivalent acceleration of 3 m/s² until I'm blue in the face, that doesn't make me any less wrong (in that it's pretty well fact that 2+2=4 in standard arithmetic and the acceleration due to gravity on earth is 9.8 m/s²).

I'm not going to get into any arguments about it, nor do I necessarily agree with the manner JP presents his arguments, I just felt the need to make a distinction between reality and beliefs.

[Demoniac]

Fair call dude. You actually brought a couple of things to my attention as well

I tend to opt towards science as well, but i really dont care what people believe, cos so far as im concerned; its a free for all. Didnt mean to come off as such a fucknut either dude, i think i ended up sounding like a massive hypocrite as well as everything.

Also, sorry for totally dragging this thread off topic...

[hairychris]

^

Hehe, I think I get where you're from too.

Personally I don't really care what people believe as long as it doesn't spill over into our shared reality. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of people, this belief informs their actions which do affect that reality.

You seem to really want to sit on the fence over this. That's fine, but on my part I see it as an inconsistant position.

I see this topic as a simple fight of demonstrable reality (faith in reason) vs undemonstrable fantasy (faith in religion). There is NO middle ground IMO. None. The instance you let in even a hint of the fantastic your entire system is suspect. Agnosticism is just a flavour that can fall on either side of the theistic arguement.

Why do I think this? Well, I see the choice of belief in the unknown vs belief in the known as a simple binary choice. You either do or you don't. The agnostic position is that we don't know, but knowledge informs beliefs rather then defines them. I don't know for sure that there's something out there, but I do not base my life, morals, etc on the assumption that there is. The theistic claim is that this entity or entities positively exist in some form...

A note on this... if it's able to affect our universe must use forces that fall into the realm of science. If the entity is so completely detached from our reality that we cannot comprehend it in any way at all, there is no practical difference between it's existense and non-existence.

On a practical level you can look at the personality cults of Stalinist-style communism as non-theistic religion, so to a certain extent the theistic and religious arguements are separate. When talking about major Western religions there is a theistic basis to them, so the theistic argument is interwoven with any problems that people may have with religions. It all gets horribly complicated!

Tolerance? Absolutely, we all need to get along. Understanding? Yeah, we need to know where other people are coming from.

Granting that people's beliefs are reasonable when they quite blatantly aren't? No way. Respecting those beliefs? No, I don't respect people being deliberately wrong or nonsensical. Respecting the right to hold them? Yeah, that's up to them as long as they keep their actions clean.

Demoniac, all good, y'know? The Dawkins book puts a lot of these points over better then we certainly can...

I think that this whole thing has gone OT in a big way, hehehe!

[Demoniac]

Oh my yes. And i am on the fence. Im middle of the road with absolutely everything. Not necessairily because i 'cant decide', so much as i just truly dont believe either single side is 100% correct in any matter... its not a feasible option so far as im concerned.

On topic again: I should probably actually read it. One day

[forelander]

Originally Posted by hairychris

Why do I think this? Well, I see the choice of belief in the unknown vs belief in the known as a simple binary choice. You either do or you don't.

I follow a quantum belief system - I believe both sides are true until a defining observation is made .

[ZeroSignal]

Originally Posted by forelander

I follow a quantum belief system - I believe both sides are true until a defining observation is made .

But that's impossible!

If, for arguments sake, want to disprove god's existence by that rational, you can't "observe" the non-existence of something so improbable and irrational as an original creator being! The fact that everyone not on drugs fails to see it on a daily basis should be reason enough...

[hairychris]

Originally Posted by Demoniac

Oh my yes. And i am on the fence. Im middle of the road with absolutely everything. Not necessairily because i 'cant decide', so much as i just truly dont believe either single side is 100% correct in any matter... its not a feasible option so far as im concerned.

EDIT: Just adding a link to Dawkins. I think that it probably relates very closely to what you were talking about earlier:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JKGtcVoBhBQ

I don't know what the evangelical was expecting, to be honest, but I doubt that it was this... in public...! END EDIT!

'Reason' (or science or whatever you want to call it) is basically test & observation. Science, fwiw, is not a thing, it's essentially this process but strictly controlled so that the results are reproducable. These observations are then fitted together in hypothesis that allow predictions to be made on other sets of data. If the results from new data fits the hypothesis it is strengthened, if the new results deviate then the hypothesis requires revision. In this way science, the application of reason, is self correcting. If you can tell me of a religion that has a process to find truth is as controlled a fashion then I'll applaud you! In fact, a tenet of major religions is to hold faith even when reality contradicts the teachings.

I don't see how you can accept both 100%, or accept neither. Reason isn't one tool for human understanding, it's our entire toolbox. Anarchy prevails otherwise.

Many theists try to say that they are rational, but their 'faith' still boils down to what is essentially unprovable. Many atheists will happily believe in the supernatural if the supernatural can be demonstrated.

Do you believe that there is a specific point, somewhere, where reason breaks down? Please note that there is a subtle but massive difference between a phenomenon that we do not currently understand, and a phenomenon that we can never understand (eg the supernatural). Do you believe that there are things in this universe that fall into the second category, or the first?

FWIW atheists generally plump for the first, theists (by definition as their god is not a 'natural' being) fall into the second category.

Things do tend to get a bit sketchy at the quantum level where probability seems to hold as much sway as anything, btw...

Originally Posted by Demoniac

On topic again: I should probably actually read it. One day

As you note the on topic part didn't last long!

Originally Posted by forelander

I follow a quantum belief system - I believe both sides are true until a defining observation is made .

Schrödinger's God????

[forelander]

Originally Posted by hairychris

Schrödinger's God

That's the joke I was going for, yeah.

[Demoniac]

Originally Posted by hairychris

Do you believe that there is a specific point, somewhere, where reason breaks down? Please note that there is a subtle but massive difference between a phenomenon that we do not currently understand, and a phenomenon that we can never understand (eg the supernatural). Do you believe that there are things in this universe that fall into the second category, or the first?

I believe there are both. The origin of the universe. The big bang may be a reasonable theory, but as a human i cannot understand how something can come of nothing. That being said, i dont understand the concept of the immaterial being that illogically created the world in seven days

And yeah, the on topic bit didnt last long

Originally Posted by forelander

I follow a quantum belief system - I believe both sides are true until a defining observation is made .

I agree with this. But for me 'faith' is in a slightly different basket to science, so despite the fact that im not actually religious, i find it much harder to 'disprove' religion as i dont really believe it can be/should be proven or disproven...

[hairychris]

Originally Posted by Demoniac

I believe there are both. The origin of the universe. The big bang may be a reasonable theory, but as a human i cannot understand how something can come of nothing. That being said, i dont understand the concept of the immaterial being that illogically created the world in seven days

And yeah, the on topic bit didnt last long

Bwahaha.

I think that you may have missed my point slightly... Physics current says 'I don't know'. The apologist says 'I don't know therefore god'.

Back to an earlier point, if the force behind our universe's creation has no intersection with our reality then it does not exist by any reasonable definition.

However, if the solution is something like... hmm, the universe is expanding in a way that's difficult to visualise, however, if you take a deflated balloon, draw points on it, then blow the balloon up, you see the points moving away from each other but this is only through the action of an additional dimension (the dots on the balloon are 2D, the balloon inflating is 3D).

If you live in the 2D universe you may find the physics involved difficult to comprehend, but they are explicable through regular natural laws, although rather esoteric maths is required! Our universe may be similar... there may be additional dimensions outside our experience but this is not the same as the supernatural in the theistic vein as there will be laws controlling these additional universes too.

No one knows for sure because it is currently impossible to demonstrate any theories. We may never discover the details, but positing that anything other then natural causes has to be the explanation is a big fucking ask...

[Demoniac]

^ Maybe it is too much to ask, but i definitely think its plausible at the very least. Unlikely? Probably. Possible? I think so.

I agree with you other than that.

I just thought of something though: How fucking funny is the thought of a "God" creating the world.. flat... and it spinning through space

[Amelie]

Originally Posted by TonalArchitect

x 2.

Sky-Daddy, HAHAHAHA. Awesome.

I found the book really hard to progress with, it's pretty heavy duty and I'll admit I put it down for a long while after only a few chapters, even though I was enjoying it. I think he's fantastic, whoever said that he has to take everything to the edge of the earth because of the nature of the topic was totally right. He had to do it because believers would be picking holes in the book for the next century.

[hairychris]

^ Hehe, weird, it's easy reading compared to some of his other stuff...

Oh, I don't need a hug, btw. I like ranting. Makes up for the fact that I'm definitely going to hell. All of them, probably!

Originally Posted by Demoniac

^ Maybe it is too much to ask, but i definitely think its plausible at the very least. Unlikely? Probably. Possible? I think so.

I agree with you other than that.

I just thought of something though: How fucking funny is the thought of a "God" creating the world.. flat... and it spinning through space

OK then, we now have the regression issue.

If something 'intelligently' created this universe, what (or who) created the creator?

If you don't say that the natural universe (or universes) is the is the ultimate mover, you either have infinite regression or a 'special case' that you call god. This is inconsistent, especially if you cannot define the attributes of this being to start with...

This is a fundamental issue with any claim of this type. If you want to be more specific & bash individual religions who make explicit claims then, well, that's possible too. Heck, you may say that something created the universe & left it to it's own devices (deism), this creator is still kicking around today but we can't describe it so don't bother to try (agnostic theism) or that the whole universe is god (pantheism) but they are all ultimately unprovable... and in the case of the first 2 are logically 'challenging' to define in the first place!

I seem to remember reading somewhere (maybe Dawkins) that pantheism was described as 'sexed up atheism', where you essentially worship existence. That amused me. I'm easy to amuse.

Sign me up for the cosmic multi-dimensional frisbee theory. I'm fucking there!

[Demoniac]

Im a weird one.

[hairychris]

Hah! Well it makes as much sense as any other statement, especially if god's own universe is a frisbee itself, and so-on ad infinitum. Makes me travel sick even to think about it...