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Symantec: Religious Sites "Riskier Than Porn For Viruses"
First time accepted submitter kongshem writes "According to Symantec's annual Internet Security Threat Report, religious and ideological websites have far more security threats per infected site than adult/pornographic sites. Why is that? Symantec's theory: 'We hypothesize that this is because pornographic Web site owners already make money from the Internet and, as a result, have a vested interested in keeping their sites malware-free — it's not good for repeat business,'"
But jebus will protect me so I don't need your silly anti-virus
@Random_Adam
Sometimes a sig doesn't have to be funny!!
If the problem is that porn sites are more heavily monetized, that means the religions need to catch up. They could offer all kinds of services online for a price -- even eternal salvation.
Some religions already offer this, of course. Looks like a good deal to me!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
First they infect the children. Then they infect the computer.
Luckily a little bit of reading usually helps with the disinfection process.
There, someone had to say it :-)
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
So how are they categorizing pornographic websites? What are the other 9 categories that are more "dangerous"?
While promiscuous sex may make you ill, religions and ideologies actually kill people
I don't really have much to add to the conversation. I'm just happy to see somebody call it the hypothesis that it is, rather than the theory that it isn't.
While their ideas may be true, by my understanding it's mainly the free porn sites that are riskiest. It used to be that they set up expensive dialers, or other ways to make money. I believe it's a way for them to make money other than by serving ads or selling subscriptions, and that actually webmasters installed that stuff on their sites. Those dialers at least tended to be called after porn sites, and actually gave (paid) access to the sites.
Dialers don't work anymore these days of course, with no-one using modems and dial-up. And maybe webmasters have cleaned up their act too.
Now those religious sites, they are usually set up by people with a passion - to spread a certain message, about a religion or otherwise, and that are often people with little or no knowledge on setting up a website and keeping it malware free. As such I would expect such sites to be a relatively soft target for malware attackers, that then use the site to distribute their wares without the webmaster knowing. A very different scenario.
That porn sites are often in it for the money, will definitely also help. At least they'll have someone around that knows how to secure a web site.
This is what you get when you preach abstinence-only sex education.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
"pornography leads to terrible crimes against women and children" [from http://conservapedia.com/Porn%5D citing my sources for the reliable truth of the matter... this is reliable isn't it?
Religious Sites "Riskier Than Porn For Viruses"
Is that the risk of a meme or a computer virus?
I do think of Dawkins as a devout Atheist - and he certainly likes to spread his ideas. Some of his arguments against religion seem merely to argue that it is bad just because it is most likely delusional (which I don't necessarily go along with). However, when it comes to the impact of freedoms of others, contraception and other issues, the malignant aspect of a virus seems to manifest itself much more clearly in the theist's park than Dawkins' proselytising.
It is interesting to note that Web sites hosting adult/pornographic content are not in the top five, but ranked tenth. The full list can be seen in figure 16. Moreover, religious and ideological sites were found to have triple the average number of threats per infected site than adult/pornographic sites. We hypothesize that this is because pornographic website owners already make money from the internet and, as a result, have a vested interest in keeping their sites malware-free – it’s not good for repeat business.
Figure 16, interestingly, does not show religious and ideological sites, I assume it is grouped with "Education/Reference". The full top 10 is
Indeed, atheism has as little support in science as theism. Agnosticism is the only scientific viewpoint.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Click here if you love jesus! is pretty likely to get a good number of hits on a religious site -- similarly for Obama haters (or lovers). It's a reflex action that will get these people in some really hot water.
Porn site users, on the other hand, are a bit more jaded.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
interesting how every single one of the symptoms described applies to Atheists as much as any of the faiths Dawkins intends to deride.
Yeah - except for the ones that talk about evidence though, right?
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Well, let's see
It is impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, the believer feels as totally compelling and convincing.
Atheist is impelled by conviction fuelled by external evidence, or lack of evidence. It's incredibly compelling to note that the two largest theist franchises claim their deity possesses three qualities - omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence - and that the state of the world is completely at odds with any entity with all three qualities existing. It's also compelling to note that the more we discover about the universe, the more things we discover that work just fine without any kind of deity.
The believer typically makes a positive virtue of faith's being strong and unshakable, despite it not being based upon evidence.
Atheists don't make a positive virtue of unshakable faith. If anything we use this as an argument ad-hominem about how childish theists are. If you proved that a particular deity existed with actual evidence, most of us would probably a) pee ourselves b) recant our position.
There is a conviction that "mystery", per se, is a good thing; the belief that it is not a virtue to solve mysteries but to enjoy them and revel in their insolubility.
Many of the the most prominent atheists in the media are scientists, a kind of person who by definition delves into mysteries to see how they actually work. I personally find that atheism arises most in those with a questioning mind, the kind of mind that finds that understanding, for example, how the transition of electrons through particular quantum states governs the colour of the light emitted, does not diminish the beauty of phenomena like their aurora borealis, but instead enhances it.
There may be intolerant behaviour towards perceived rival faiths, in extreme cases even the killing of opponents or advocating of their deaths. Believers may be similarly violent in disposition towards apostates or heretics, even if those espouse only a slightly different version of the faith.
We're intolerant of unpleasant behaviour in general (giving the lie to the theistic argument that an atheist can have no moral foundation). We are particularly angered when such behaviour is justified on the basis of faith. Objectively, being a religious asshat is not worse than being a standard asshat, but we observe that religion has a tendency to nurture and encourage asshattery of certain types, and even for asshats it did not create, it provides a readily accessible stock of cherry-picked excuses and justifications for asshattery, whereas a faithless man might have fallen back on his conscience, or fear of the law.
The particular convictions that the believer holds, while having nothing to do with evidence, are likely to resemble those of the believer's parents.
I don't think this can be disputed - atheist parents are more likely to have atheist kids. This is nothing to do with religion per-se, this is an observation about culture in general.
If the believer is one of the rare exceptions who follows a different religion from his parents, the explanation may be cultural transmission from a charismatic individual.
Another observation about culture and how it's transmitted, but it fits in with the "viral ideas" theory. Ideas ARE viral, and we invent new transmission vectors like Twitter, and hashtags.
The internal sensations of the 'faith-sufferer' may be reminiscent of those more ordinarily associated with sexual love.
I don't think atheists have a woody for the absence of a deity. I don't think you can be sexually excited about the absence of something. I think atheists, just like everyone else, can have displacement of their sexual urges in a fetishi
Rather than trying to keep in mind which sites not to visit you could just upgrade your browser to a version that can't be hacked by a website. Of course, AV companies would get far less money without naive people believing their FUD.
You're kidding right? Monetisation is the backbone of all major and proselytising religions.
I think we should give porn (and other commercial sex services like prostitution) the tax free status possessed by all religions, no matter how stupid, dangerous, or just obviously fraudulent. If scientology, sleazebag televangelists and the pope can all soak the gullible for millions and not pay a cent in taxes, why shouldn't porn stars and prostitutes? At least they're honest when they lie to you.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Since I've been 'religiously' reading slashdot for over a decade now, incalculably more regularly than I've gone to church, shall I assume that slashdot is likely delivering me malware right now?
Seriously, since CmdrTaco left, and to be honest, many years prior to that and the recent SlashBI goodness, things have been going way downhill. This past year I've still skimmed each 600+ post global warming article, because it seems important enough, and the slashdot flamefests, despite the signal to noise ratio, sadly seem more intelligent than any other conversation on the topic. But threads like this, where every last highly moderated comment seems like nothing more than a troll-response bounty for the pageview-centric new management... Ehh. If there is one comment that breaks me of my slashdot religion, it was probably the first Score:5 comment on this thread- "Obama ate a a dog!". I guess the planet will just have to burn...
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/04/28/2214228/google-releases-fcc-report-on-street-view-probe
I don't agree. Agnosticism is just weak atheism, and only relevant if you ascribe special importance to some religions and their gods. Otherwise, what's the point of being agnostic about EVERYTHING you can't know whether it exists or not? It's nonsense. "Oh, I'm an agnostic about the invisible pink unicorn (blessed be her holy hooves), and about Kropal the mighty God of Making Holes in Socks, and about Thor and about Klaatu and about Mohammed and about Jesus and about Cats being the avatars of our master race and about ...".
Anyone who can seriously invent a god and then say that the only scientific viewpoint is to be agnostic about it (because you know, who knows, right?), is just hiding behind their mother's skirts.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
How so? Let's look at them one-by-one.
1. Deep conviction of truth without evidence. Atheists in general have so such conviction. Atheism is the absence of belief, not an alternative belief. 0 points.
2. Unshakable faith. Most atheists and certainly most atheist scholars argue against dogmatism and in favor of evidence-based belief and decision making. 0 points.
3. Mystery as such is inherently good. I'm going to skip this one; ascribing it to atheists seems "not even wrong." 0 points.
4. Intolerant behavior toward rival faiths. Atheists may be intolerant of religious people, true, but profession of atheism has been a killing offence in many places for thousands of years. Atheists also do not claim that people who disagree with them deserve and will suffer an eternity of pain. Let's say, half a point.
5. Particular convictions are likely to resemble those of one's parents. Probably true of people in general, however atheists are also much more likely to have different beliefs than do their parents. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and a full point.
6. If beliefs differ from the parents, a singular charismatic individual may be responsible. I think it's much more common for people to become atheists due to internal reflection and external observations, than it is for them to become religious. However, Dawkins, Hitchens, etc. fall into the category of "charismatic individuals". 1 point.
7. Internal feelings may be similar to romantic love. I don't think anyone is really experiencing the passion of the nothing that way, and their are no wives of the nothing (i.e. atheist nuns) either. 0 points.
So of the 7 "symptoms" Dawkins describes, just 2.5 of them can be fairly ascribed to atheists.
.: Semper Absurda
Do they mean *free* porn sites, or *paid* porn sites?
There's definitely a difference.
Atheist porn fans have less malware. The benefits to not being a religious prude just keep on a coming.
From the GPP-linked wiki article:
Dawkins suggests that religious belief in the "faith-sufferer" typically shows the following elements:
* It is impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, the believer feels as totally compelling and convincing. -- Nope. We require evidence, extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.
* The believer typically makes a positive virtue of faith's being strong and unshakable, despite it not being based upon evidence. -- Nope. A basic idea to the scientific process is that our theories are the best we know of, today. Tomorrow, we could be proven wrong, and that's a good thing, it means we learned something new.
* There is a conviction that "mystery", per se, is a good thing; the belief that it is not a virtue to solve mysteries but to enjoy them and revel in their insolubility. -- Nope. Our goal is to solve the mysteries. In the words of Gregory House: "Knowing is way cooler."
* There may be intolerant behaviour towards perceived rival faiths, in extreme cases even the killing of opponents or advocating of their deaths. Believers may be similarly violent in disposition towards apostates or heretics, even if those espouse only a slightly different version of the faith. -- That's going to require a citation, I personally know of no instances where an atheist was violent towards a religious person _because of their religion_.
* The particular convictions that the believer holds, while having nothing to do with evidence, are likely to resemble those of the believer's parents. -- Nope. In fact, most atheists practiced some form of religion, usually their parents', before they became atheists. To quote Carlin: "When I was a kid, I was a Catholic, at least until I reached the age of reason."
* If the believer is one of the rare exceptions who follows a different religion from his parents, the explanation may be cultural transmission from a charismatic individual. -- Or it might not. Does it matter how you learned about it? Not really a "symptom", IMHO.
* The internal sensations of the 'faith-sufferer' may be reminiscent of those more ordinarily associated with sexual love. -- LOL. Okay, that's one I've never heard anyone accuse atheists/atheism of. Again, citation?
Excuse me, wtf r u doin?
Several of the arguments you're making do not hold up.
Atheist is impelled by conviction fuelled by external evidence, or lack of evidence. It's incredibly compelling to note that the two largest theist franchises claim their deity possesses three qualities - omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence - and that the state of the world is completely at odds with any entity with all three qualities existing. It's also compelling to note that the more we discover about the universe, the more things we discover that work just fine without any kind of deity.
Your first assertion is the equivalent of the common, "why would a perfect god allow X?" That is not a refutation of the existence of God. It suggests that God doesn't exist OR we have an imperfect understanding of either God or the universe. The second point is a note that there is a lack of evidence, which again doesn't point one way or the other.
Atheists don't make a positive virtue of unshakable faith. If anything we use this as an argument ad-hominem about how childish theists are. If you proved that a particular deity existed with actual evidence, most of us would probably a) pee ourselves b) recant our position.
You claim that if real proof of God's existence were offered then most Atheists would recant their positions. But you also seem to be assuming that the inverse is not true. I see no basis for thinking that a religious person would not recant his position if the opposite one were proven. Neither position is currently proven, and I don't foresee that happening any time soon.
Many of the the most prominent atheists in the media are scientists, a kind of person who by definition delves into mysteries to see how they actually work. I personally find that atheism arises most in those with a questioning mind, the kind of mind that finds that understanding, for example, how the transition of electrons through particular quantum states governs the colour of the light emitted, does not diminish the beauty of phenomena like their aurora borealis, but instead enhances it.
Does the scientist delve in to the mystery because he dislikes it? I think you'll find as many scientists claiming to like the mystery he's exploring as you'll find theologists with the same claim.
I don't think atheists have a woody for the absence of a deity. I don't think you can be sexually excited about the absence of something. I think atheists, just like everyone else, can have displacement of their sexual urges in a fetishistic style for other things, but I think the main difference is that we get excited by things we chose, or happened upon by chance, or had advertised to us, instead of something we were told to find exciting by a preacher man.
The idea of God's existence and the idea of God's inexistence are just two more "things." Either can be and are fetishised, as you note humans sometimes do,or not. As for how you come across them I think you're making a distinction without a difference. You can chance across a "preacher man." You can choose the religion. You can choose the atheism. And it seems to me that from a non-religious point of view the advertiser and the "preacher man" are markedly similar.
Atheism is the belief, without evidence, in the lack of existence of any deity. Theism is the belief, without evidence, in the existence of some deity or deities or their rough equivalents. Both are unproven and (probably) non-falsifiable beliefs.
Rejcting a claim that has zero evidence and defies logic is not only scientific, it's common-sense. Dawkin's has on many occasions stated in plain english that neither he nor anyone else can be absolutely sure that unicorns don't fart rainbows, but that there is absolutely zero evidence to suggest that unverifyable reports of such beasts are anything more than an elaborate fiction. If you had spent more than 5 minutes to read his books, listen to his lectures, or watch his debates, you would have known that.
If you are interested in forming a more accurate picture of Dawkins rather than parroting the Fox and Friends charactature that is so popular in the US, the first of his books with a religious theme that I would recommend is "Unweaving the Rainbow".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It is not even that. Atheism and Agnosticism exist on orthogonal axes. Theism and Atheism make ontological statements about the existence resp. nonexistence of deities. Agnosticism, on the other hand, makes an epistemological statement about the possibility to know about said existence. It is perfectly possible to be an agnostic theist as well as an agnostic atheist.
As for the scientific validity - in absence of evidence, the default assumption is non-existence. It is simple as that. Do we need that debate every single fucking time the weekly religion vs. atheism thread pops up?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Would science ever come up with religion as a reasonable hypothesis if it weren't for oral transmission of myths? No, because it's patently absurd.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
It suggests that God doesn't exist OR we have an imperfect understanding of either God or the universe.
A perfect reason to reject that particular *religion* then. If power supernatural sentience exists, both the atheist and the theist have their description of the universe wrong. As it happens, the atheist position may make assumptions about the non-existence of god - you can't, as you rightly point out, prove a negative - but the observable universe does not disagree with his position on the nature of God.
From the evidential POV, atheism and agnosticism are equal to a theistic stance which believes that God does not intervene in the universe, but most religions have the answer to prayer as a major plank of their platform, and thus hold a position at odds with the lack of evidence that prayer has a measurable effect. If God does not intervene in the universe, then religion is of dubious value unless it conveys benefits that are not achievable otherwise, which is observably not the case. People are capable of being moral, charitable, cooperative, law-abiding, good parents, and upstanding citizens without the aid of religion, and are probably less likely to stray from the "path" given that atheism has a strong correlation with better education and income. So the only possible benefits would seem to be set apart from the concerns of our life here on Earth.
The question of entry into an afterlife paradise is something we can't examine ; but if you have faith that over half the world's population are damned to eternal suffering, or even just exclusion from paradise, because blind chance has birthed them into the wrong religion, and yet you continue to worship a being you believe not just to be OK with that, but ordain it, what does this say about your own morals? Even if I had empirical proof that such an entity existed, I would still be an atheist - not claiming that no God existed, but refusing to worship any such God. (Coercion by fear negates act of worship as being mere pretence, in my mind).
Does the scientist delve in to the mystery because he dislikes it? I think you'll find as many scientists claiming to like the mystery he's exploring as you'll find theologists with the same claim.
The difference being emphasised is that the scientist revels in exploring mystery and revealing truth, where the religion exhorts it's followers to be content to perceive mystery and not explore it - the implication being that religion fears that truth so revealed is incompatible with it's doctrine, a fear that is not without basis or precedent.
mod parent up
I have met many clever people who are members of churches, but their time given to their churches is voluntary.
Often the equipment has been donated as well, and so is usually not particularly modern either.
The website design is usually managed by a committee, as is the choice of hosting provider, and costs are kept to a minimum.
The net result is that once the web site is finally done, it may be neglected, or someone inherits the responsibility for it who knows little about its history, and might be more secretarial than technical. Thus security updates get neglected, and quite often there are many user accounts with weak passwords.
The Symantec report, the Internet Security Threat Report, 2011 Trends, did not say what the article in the OP claims.
The actual report is here: http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/other_resources/b-istr_main_report_2011_21239364.en-us.pdf . Page 33 of the report, the only discussion of religion, states
"religious and ideological sites were found to have triple the average number of threats per infected site than
adult/pornographic sites."
Three points:
1. The report lumps religious and ideological sites together. Maybe the infected sites were ideological (non-religious) sites. You cannot conclude anything about religious sites at all from that statistic.
2. The report implies nothing about the safety of religious/ideological sites. It just says that if a religious/ideological site is infected, then it has more threats on average than an infected adult site. If the percentage of religious/ideological sites that are infected is lower than the percentage of adult sites that are infected, then religious/ideological sites could be much safer on average. Indeed, figure 16 on page 36 of the report doesn't list religous/ideological sites as dangerous. The point is that the safety of religious/ideological sites as a whole must account for uninfected sites. The "number of threats per infected site" is just about irrelevant.
3. If there is any limit to the gullibility or statistical illiteracy of internet users, I have yet to perceive it.
But jebus will protect me so I don't need your silly anti-virus
Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' "
Why would I want to test Linus?
It was a reference to Gnu/RMS, you insensitive clod!
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Agnosticism is just weak atheism,
I agree. It has a bit of a scientific flavor but it's rubbish.
There's another distinction that needs to be made though Most atheists are antitheists and usually against religion. They are believers in not-God. Atheism is also typically a reaction to christianity. Just read the piece "Roman Catholic Atheist" about how weird it is that Freeman Dyson goes to church. Contrast this with how acceptable the idea is of an atheist Jew in a synagogue.
An atheist in the more literal sense would have a more neutral attitude. Mainly, less involved, like someone who just got introduced to the concept. I don't mind anthropomorphising too much and I could believe in a God if properly defined, so that it becomes a valuable concept.
The second point is a note that there is a lack of evidence, which again doesn't point one way or the other.
There's also a lack of evidence for many other things, but we don't believe them. Making a categorical statement that something does not exist is, in my opinion, a little pointless. Most atheists do not seek to prove god does not exist. They just point out there's no compelling evidence for god, just as there is no compelling evidence for the billions of other things we do not believe in.
The idea of God's existence and the idea of God's inexistence are just two more "things."
No, they're not. There are almost infinite things we do not believe in. Claiming that each of those beliefs is equivalent to believing in god is wrong. I do not believe that undetectable miniature pink William Shatner lookalikes riding green unicorns swat quarks with orange flyswats, resulting in quantum mechanics weirdness. No one in the history of time has ever believed that. Believing that is not as valid a standpoint as not believing it.
Note here - I'm not trying to make belief in god look silly, I'm purely refuting the argument that believing in something without evidence is the same thing as not believing in something without evidence.
Atheism is the belief, without evidence, in the lack of existence of any deity.
Very few atheist would argue they can prove the lack of existance of any deity. To do so is stupid. Similarly, very few people would claim to be able to disprove many other theories, like the Shatners above. That doesn't mean believing in them is an equivalent "thing" to not believing in them.
A perfect reason to reject that particular *religion* then.
Yes. But which religion is that particular religion? There are some naive versions of Christianity which you can reject using that argument, however most versions provide a solution of the "problem of evil". E.g.: By limiting the omnipotence. If your definition of God is "omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence", then you could even call them atheists, because they don't believe in such a being, but instead something very close to it. Or if you look at more recent theologians, e.g. Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
The God who makes us live in this world without using him as a working hypothesis is the God before whom we are ever standing. Before God and with him we live without God. God allows himself to be edged out of the world and on to the cross. God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help us. Matthew 8: 17 makes it crystal clear that it is not by his omnipotence that Christ helps us, but by his weakness and suffering.
From the evidential POV, atheism and agnosticism are equal to a theistic stance which believes that God does not intervene in the universe, but most religions have the answer to prayer as a major plank of their platform, and thus hold a position at odds with the lack of evidence that prayer has a measurable effect.
"Pray and get healed" and similar claims can be rejected yes. But many religions claims aren't that simple. Most of the time the claims are actually untestable, e.g.: "pray and reduce your time in hell". Or they can be tested and will even be found to be true, but there is also naturalistic explanation for the claim, e.g: "pray and God provides hope".
If God does not intervene in the universe, then religion is of dubious value unless it conveys benefits that are not achievable otherwise, which is observably not the case.
The important question is not just if something is also achievable without religion, but also the probability of archiving something. People can be good and bad with and without religion. But what kind of differences will religion actually cause? This is really hard to evaluate. It can not be evaluated by a series of anecdotes. This is the real problem with Dawkins. The question of god existence can never be answered by science. But the physical results of religion are a valid field of scientific study. But here Dawkins doesn't really seem to want to really dig into the data. He doesn't want to really test his hypothesis about the effects of religions or his meme theory. He seems to be only focused on collecting anecdotes that agree with his point of view.
People are capable of being moral, charitable, cooperative, law-abiding, good parents, and upstanding citizens without the aid of religion, and are probably less likely to stray from the "path" given that atheism has a strong correlation with better education and income.
But will this continue if people are living in a society completely without religion and without religious upbringing? We just don't know yet. There is no example for a democratic state like this in history. The only examples for almost completely atheistic societies are set by communist states, which are not really fair examples to evaluate the question.
Jan
No one thinks that playboy.com is a malware site, but malware authors would rather use the promise of free porn on example.com or via an executable from a torrent than set up a religious site.
I would like to see it please.
What are you if you answer "I am extremely sure there is no deity, but who can be 100% sure at the end of the day? If it turns out there is one, then cool, I'll eat humble pie, but until that point, 'no'!"?
You expect a whore to give you a virus so you practice safe hex. No one ever expects the Church to give you a virus.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It should be expected because religions ARE viruses.
As for the scientific validity - in absence of evidence, the default assumption is non-existence. It is simple as that. Do we need that debate every single fucking time the weekly religion vs. atheism thread pops up?
Probably, because science in this case is a lot like a court of law - the only people that are guilty are those who have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but we know there's a lot more people that have actually committed crimes. In the same way many people think there's a lot more between heaven and earth than science has proven, that God makes a prod here and a pull there but never something you can pin down in a lab because he'd know and won't perform tricks on command like a trained dog. I guess they resist the assertion that all that science has found is all there is.
Imagine that the only measuring device you have can only measure visible light. Sure, you'd be able to do a lot of science with that but there'd be a whole world of infrared and ultraviolet, radio waves, microwaves, radiation and whatnot you'd not be able to see. In the same way people believe that you have the basic reality but also more beyond what science has been able to catch in their instruments and experiments and observations. To believe that science is "complete" and fully account for everything that happens is more faith than science.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Anonymous did DDOS against it but I think failed to penetrate. Some religious groups take security more seriously than others.
Perhaps there is some correlation between religion and gullibility?
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
I can think of 1 or 2. I do not mean, of course, that nobody has falsely claimed to be Wiccan or Buddhist and used it to scam people. What I am saying is that - by definition - those people are not true Wiccans or Buddhists. In every other religion of which I am aware there is a proxy to Deity to whom you go and to whom you donate money. In Wicca and Buddhism, there is no proxy. There are those who are considered more enlightened, and to whom they look for guidance, but no official donation channels ala Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism, Scientology, etc.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Most religious organizations rely on as much volunteer work and "free" services as they can get. Often, a member of the organization will offer to provide a service free of charge (such as hosting, programming, installing a CMS, setting up a wireless network in the offices, etc.). When services like that are rendered by well-intentioned, but ignorant volunteers, websites are highly vulnerable to infection.
We aren't talking about a lack of evidence, but rather an absence of proof. Prosecutors compile evidence against you. Often they compile lots of evidence against an innocent man. The existence of evidence does not ensure proof.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Find yourself a Local Church and make a serious offer to help out with the Tech Stuff. What i want to know is why FLOSS has not made more of an impact in the Christian Community?
How many missionaries to X are running about using MSO (most likely even a Recent Version) that could be using Libre-Office?
(and why is there not a serious contender for an OpenSource version of EasyWorship??
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Atheism is the belief, without evidence, in the lack of existence of any deity. Theism is the belief, without evidence, in the existence of some deity or deities or their rough equivalents. Both are unproven and (probably) non-falsifiable beliefs.
Wasting mod points to comment: The first claim is not entirely correct. As is, in certain ways, the second. In both cases, a collection of empirical facts can be stacked just so to support either statement. If one accepts the general epistemological rules for building consensus data through empirical observation (and the surrounding baggage), then the theist position is the more convoluted one. Every day things happen without miracles (or anything demonstrable as such), and every day more observations get added to the evidence pile for an atheist position.
If one doesn't accept or follow the general epistemology of science (particularly in the modern, Kuhnian and Popperian way) then one likely sees what might be miracles all the time, and those observations get added to the theism pile.
Disagreements about what constitutes evidence are where we are, not two incommensurate positions that are entirely untestable. Well, I suppose someone could be in that third position, but they'd be the third person out in any debate. I prefer the a priori assumption that the universe is comprehensible until, well, it's not.
semantics are everything!
Foolishly? Someone said there is evidence, they said I don't like looking at it. I merely countered that by saying I would like to look at it if it is, supposedly, there.
Yes, I can see the sky.
No, I am not in a 'cell'.
I read your other post and, proof aside, I still don't even see any evidence of God's existence. I hold to what I said, I would still like to see it, please.
Agnosticism is the proper scientific view of religion within existing scientific framework. It argues that since we have absolutely no proof whatsoever of existence of entity that is God, it's pointless to believe in one without any evidence. Being an agnostic theist is a bit of a oxymoron because of this. Theists typically argues that his/her belief is proof enough (purely objective and therefore unscientific) while atheist argues that his lack of belief and lack of scientific evidence to contrary is enough.
So you can be an agnostic atheist, i.e. subscribe to idea that since we have no proof that God exists, God does not exist. On the other hand, arguing that since we have no proof that God exists, God exists is in fact an oxymoron. Believers generally accept such double-think (denying and accepting the same thing) as it is present throughout many religions, which is why idea of "agnostic theist" doesn't sound like an obvious oxymoron to someone used to such double think thought model.
I fix PC's for an ISP in the bible belt of the USA, and I have to fix about 20 computers a day with viruses, and they've been to no porn sites, downloaded no torrents or mp3's or illegal software. But they ALL have Daily Bible Guide or some sort of religious shit that they threaten me not to remove.
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Dawkin's has on many occasions stated in plain english that neither he nor anyone else can be absolutely sure that unicorns don't fart rainbows, but that there is absolutely zero evidence to suggest that unverifyable reports of such beasts are anything more than an elaborate fiction.
An often used argument but not a valid one. There are many reason why this or Russel's Teapot is not a valid analogy to the belief in god.
1. Unverifiable reports? You rarely hear people reporting unicorns but I never heard anyone reporting a unicorn farting rainbows or a teapots in space. There are however a huge amount of people claiming some religious experience. Sure, this can possibly be all be bogus but this sure is a reason to investigate religious claims much more seriously then claims of farting unicorns.
2. There is no good reason why a farting unicorn would not have been noticed and caught by now. Religions usually provide built-in reasons why their god wasn't noticed by anyone yet.
3. Also try to replace farting unicorns by intelligent alien life in a different sun system. There is no evidence for this either, but still doesn't seem unlikely. Why? Because we can interpolate using our scientific knowledge about the development of life on earth and about the universe. We can get the result that the existence intelligent life outside of earth is possible and can even be considered likely. So for claims without evidence, Humans don't usually rule them out by default, but instead try to estimate an answer to the question by using knowledge about similar entities. For farting unicorns or teapots in space we got a lot of knowledge about horses and other animals, about regular teapots and space which we can use to estimate that these claims are very unlikely.
But what kind of knowledge about similar entities do we have to estimate anything about the existence of god? We got no good knowledge about any existing entity that shares just some basic properties with god.
Also check out the famous debate of Russell vs. Copleston. And while I don't think Copleston's cosmological argument proves the existence of god, it shows at least one thing: For anything to exist, there must be something that bends the usual rule of contingency. So such a deistic god is not a arbitrary assumption, but instead an possible answer for the fundamental question ("Why is there anything and not nothing?") with only a small number of possible answers.
Jan
Theism and Atheism make ontological statements about the existence resp. nonexistence of deities.
No, atheism doesn't. There are no gnostic atheists.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
When I look at the sky from my window, I see a few things. I see glittery balls of fusing hydrogen tens, hundreds, and thousands of light years away when the planet is facing away from our star, and I see scattered blue light through an oxygen atmosphere, or possibly water vapor blocking the light, when the planet is facing toward our star. It's lovely to look at, but it's pretty much the same view from any other oxygenated planet in the habitable zone around a G type star.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
... and there it is. The foolish reply despite the warning. The word "evidence" doesn't mean what you think it does.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Congratulations! You have identified the evidence that there is a creator! I grant you that said evidence does not constitute proof.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Agnostic
Rejcting a claim that has zero evidence and defies logic is not only scientific, it's common-sense.
And yet, we spend billions of dollars on supercolliders looking for particles that we suspect exist but have not been able to observe, and billions of dollars on listening for extraterrestrial life that we suspect exist but haven't been able to observe.
I for one would be interested in seeing whether atheists also disbelieve in the Higgs Boson particle (I happen to think it probably does exist) or extraterrestrial life (I happen to think that ET probably does not exist, at least not in the form that we are looking for).
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Religion is worse for you than porn. (as if we didn't know that already)
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
I am perfectly clear on what evidence means. What do *you* think it means?
Ironically, you have provided overwhelming evidence that you don't know what it means, and that you are unwilling or unable to look it up in a dictionary, or follow a simple hyperlink.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
agnostic atheist.
if you were giving money to a specific deity just in case(or perhaps to many, for the purpose of affecting such deity, I mean, if you just give the money for shits'n'giggles or as a donation to be shared between the community that doesn't count) despite claiming to be agnostic, you'd be agnostic theist. by default though, if you're agnostic, I'd go towards the agnostic atheist line, especially if you haven't even decided which deity it would be, I'd only count people who are having doubts with their faith into the agnostic theist line...
for me agnosticism is just walking away from the argument(existence of god(s) vs. non-existence) which can have no conclusion, the only conclusion would be that some kind of deity would make his/her presence or existence known beyond any doubt to all parties in the discussion - to the other way it can never be proven so it's irrelevant. specific miracles or happenings.. sure they can be proven to happen by human, worldly mean and not by divine hand, but that's not really the same thing, that's just exposing magicians tricks.
from scientific viewpoint agnosticism is as good as atheism though - if you're taking the assumption that your randomly chosen deity possibly exists then what kind of agnostic are you really? someone looking for divine proof their whole life?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You claim that if real proof of God's existence were offered then most Atheists would recant their positions.But you also seem to be assuming that the inverse is not true. I see no basis for thinking that a religious person would not recant his position if the opposite one were proven.
A useless argument since it is is impossible to conclusively prove the non-existence of a deity. You cannot prove a negative. The best you can say is that the existence of a deity is highly improbable. Further belief in a deity is an irrational act by definition. A theist would seem more likely than most to believe in something irrational even if it was provably false and in fact there is considerable evidence that people who believe in conspiracies tend to hold on to their beliefs even stronger when they are presented with falsifying evidence.
Neither position is currently proven, and I don't foresee that happening any time soon.
It cannot happen because much religious doctrine is not falsifiable. You literally cannot disprove it. You simply have the atheists saying that deities are absurdly improbable and the theists saying that they are going to believe in them anyway no matter how unlikely.
Atheism is the belief, without evidence, in the lack of existence of any deity
No, it is absence of belief in the existence of a deity. Important distinction. Non-belief does not equal absence of belief. Atheists are typically unconcerned with whether a deity exists or not. They typically doubt the existence of a deity for the same reason they doubt the existence of unicorns that fart pixie dust. They simply find it improbable to the point of absurdity. By happenstance this matches closely with the scientific method.
if you ask evidence for the premise, all "non personal evidence" I know of and were presented to me either in christian/islam/atheist forum by religious boil down to "i accept my belief premise therefore god". When you scratch the surface they all can be summarized to a circular argument "I accept god to exists therefore god exists" or special pleading (god is special so he must be the creator) the oldest of all is kalam cosmoplogical argument or first mover. The otehr kind of evidence is the personal one which are actually more precisely called "personal anecdote" and are about as worthless as it can go in the evidence scale.
But hey go ahead, present your evidence, maybe you will present us something which hasn't been rehashed in the last 1000 years , isn't circular or special pleading. You will excuse me if I don't hold my breath.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Congratulations. You made the jump from seeing something to assigning a sentient creator to said something. You are furthermore confusing evidence with an internally consistent model. You might want to read a bit more about what Plato and Socrates had to say about these things.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The sky existing is not evidence of a creator. At best it is only evidence of the universe existing, and that is no evidence of god existence, see critic of the Kalam cosmological argument. But seeing how you take the sky as evidence of god existing, that sound strangely like the exact same argument those watchtower guy tried with me. Is your next argument that we did not invent anything ? If yes I have bad news for you ,a s we did made matter out of nothing, and invented stuff which do not exist in the universe in natural state (Laser come to mind).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
But reading the link you provided shows that you foolishly mix up science's take one evidence with court's take one evidence and mix it "proof" with that. The usual vomit of definition goalpost moving that a small subset of religious people misuse. I suggest you go read this : go to wikipedia and read on "scientific evidence" , "karl popper" and so forth, then read the reference herein. Once you are finished maybe you will learn to do something else than vacuous specious argument on definition.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The existence of evidence does not ensure proof.
True but if you gather enough evidence of sufficient quality, the difference between the two becomes negligible. For example relativity has been tested in countless ways and so far all the evidence points to the accuracy of the model. That does not mean that it cannot be proven incorrect in some manner tomorrow but it has been so well tested that for all practical purposes the body of evidence can be accepted as something akin to proof.
Regarding the existence of deities the accumulated evidence is extremely poor to non-existent. A scientific critical mind would take this as an indication that the existence of a deity is so unlikely as to be approaching proof of non-existence. They would not say it is actually proof, merely that the utter lack of evidence means that they should behave in a manner consistent with believing that a deity does not exist.
Please elucidate your theory as to how this evidence suggests the existance of a creator. I hope it's something more than, "I don't understand how the world got here, so God must have done it. "
I was taught to respect my elders. The trouble is, it's getting harder and harder to find some.
It blows my mind how many people who are so convinced that they are more intelligent than others, yet cannot grasp that evidence and proof are two different things.
Hint: There is a reason why prosecutors don't present proof in court; they present evidence. You aren't convinced by the evidence? Fine. Neither am I. Never the less, that is the evidence.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I don't think you can be sexually excited about the absence of something.
Rule 34 still applies. Google "amputee porn" and you'll see just how many people get turned on by what isn't there.
Who said it was my belief? ... and yes, that is often the basic way that people who review the evidence form the conclusion that it constitutes proof. Frankly, I think you are as big a moron as the guy who believes in the flying spaghetti monster. Both of you have formed conclusions where no conclusion is warranted. You see ... all of the evidence isn't in yet.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
What are you talking about? I read your dictionary link, which just confirmed that it means what I think it means :)
I feel that we may have a crossed wire here somewhere lol.
So did they rewrite the "I Love You" virus to broadcast "Jebus Loves You?"
Maybe the viruses are written by the Amish or the Hassidic Jews. Rumour has it they hate technology -- they're just trying to save your soul from devilish computers. :P
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Sure, all religions are getting money from their... "believers."
But how many religions are collecting money online?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
What's your term for someone that answers "No" to the question "Does the Flying Spaghetti Monster exist?"
What's your term for someone that answers "No" to the question "Do flying pink unicorns exist?"
What's your term for someone that answers "Yes" to the question "Am I a fucking idiot?"
Having worked on a site for a fairly large church, I observe that the entire development and administration team were volunteers. We happened to have some experienced people in the congregation, and our site was fairly well policed.
I suspect that smaller churches are even more likely to have all-volunteer staff, and more likely to have people who are trying their best but just don't know what they're doing. In a separate circumstance, I volunteered to host a website (I set up a common blog package on one of my web servers, skinned it for them, taught them how to use it, all for free on the condition that I didn't have to maintain it) for a smaller church, and observed that initially there was a lot of enthusiasm which drained off over time when they realized that updating and maintaining a web site is harder than they realized. The website was effectively abandoned and sat unused until their domain expired.
So go ahead and make your religious jokes; it's a free country. But the reason really is that one (porn) is a business and the other is not. And all that this entails.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I read the definition you provided and the link, and I don't understand how the sky is evidence for the existence of God.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Simple, you are an I am extremely sure there is no deity, but who can be 100% sure at the end of the day? If it turns out there is one, then cool, I'll eat humble pie, but until that point, 'no'!ist
that was simple!
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
But we don't have zero evidence of extraterrestrial life or the Higgs Boson particle. Since life exists on Earch, it is only logically that it might exist elsewere. And the Higgs Boson is predicted by the standard model of particle physics, and is currently our best hypothesis for explaining how particles have mass. We have a model of how the universe works, and we are trying to devise ways to either confirm that model or (much more likely) revise that model.
If scientists were just claiming the Higgs Boson particle exists (without even a theoretical mathematical model as a form of proof), and refused to perform experiments to confirm that it exists, then it could be compared with religious belief. Belief in gods may have been our best hypothesis for how the universe worked 2000 years ago, but believing in gods in the year 2012 is kind of like still believing that all substances are made up of Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Aether.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
The correct answer to your question for an agnostic would be, "I don't know, and no-one will ever know". Weak atheist would be the one who'd just answer "I don't know". I don't know who'd answer "huh", but I'd suspect it'd be a Taoist.
We probably did. Have a great day!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Facebook "Riskier Than Porn For Viruses"
Casteism
L. Bob Rife, anyone?
ehintz
So in summary; Rainbow farting unicorns == Angels dancing on pinheads?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
So let me get this straight, you get up have a crap that's swpet out of your home by a gigantic system of tunnels specially built to handle the morning peak hour. You have a warm shower yet you don't live in the tropics, fresh breakfast from the refrigerator, boot up your computer made from sand, using electricity made from 'dead dinosurs' hunderds of miles away and connected to your home by long flexible rocks called cables, log on to a network that connects you to everyone else in the industrialised world through countless billions of tiny pixels all individually placed on billions of pieces of flat transparent sand by machines.
And the first thing you do when you get here is ask for proof that the scientific method works?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.