i say however that it takes just as much "belief" and "faith" to believe in a god like being as it does to be an athiest. It's just another choice that we must make because we could spend the rest of our lives pondering the question.
People say this often but I have never understood it. Perhaps you can explain it to me. To me atheism is the "default" position - it is a state of not knowing and taking no assumptions. Imagine being born - do you come out with beliefs about higher powers? Or is one born an atheist? (one might be tempted to say people are born agnostics - but do babies really believe there is a 50/50 chance of a higher power? - I would sooner think it doesn't cross their minds)
God is a very popular hypothesis that seeks to explain a large number of "big" questions - however to me it has never been coupled with any direct supporting evidence, rather evidence is posed in a "negative" form - that is evidence is of the form "no competing explanations exist". This is evidenced by the retreating claims of all religions as science has answered questions that have previously been in the religious domain.
So to me the atheist position of no evidence for god = no belief in god is the "faithless" one. People often argue that god cannot be disproved, but this again is not reason to believe in a god - an infinite number of things cannot be disproved - so we nominally do not believe in them until evidence accumulates to support that hypothesis.
First of all thanks for your reply - I really enjoy discussing this subject
the second question is obvious, your communication device (you're brain/body) is broken therefore the message is screwed up
This may seem logical - but what happens when a communication device breaks down? Noise is generally introduced, the communication channel slows down, there are failures in communication - however patients with certain kinds of brain damage and stokes suffer specific changes in their behaviour while others are unaffected! (A common and disturbing one is the groping of relatives!). This can only be explained if the brain is the origin of those desires / actions. If the brain was a set of controls "you" utilised to get your "true" personality across you would cease to use / adapt the use of the brain and re-learn how to master those controls with the added noise. If you accept that state of the brain can totally impact on your personality then you are really saying that "you" are your brain!
And the buck cannot stop with the brain because every action has to have a reaction (and vice versa). I'm surprised however that no-one told me this in answer to my question "Who told my brain to tell my thumbs to move? You did!" This is a valid answer but then you trace it back to what told me to tell you to tell your brain etc... you see that this eventually has to trace back to something that just happened spontaneously, however spontaneous action is not something that jives well with the laws of the physical universe, this is why i say that somewhere along the line something (if you want to call it metaphysical) but something like a god perhaps had to either make the first move (outside the laws of our universe) or is perhaps still making moves. i'm guessing the latter
You say that every action has to have a reaction and vice versa but its your idea that breaks this - having an causally independent "you" that generates actions breaks the laws of physics. You explain this away but introducing a god - but I think it would be just as fair to say "you don't know". You are your brain, and you are following the laws of physics because you are fundamentally an (albeit very complex) input to output converter. Do you really think that you do anything spontaneously? How could one do anything spontaneously in a causal universe! Most of all why is it so important to be able to do things spontaneously that one would introduce illogical concepts to make it possible?
The big bang theory is not faith chief, it a hypothesis that successfully explains a large body of evidence (ie. a theory). As for where the object came from to begin with - nobody knows. And this is not a show stopper for science. Nobody adopts unquestionable dogmas, nobody says "we don't know hence god did it q.e.d.", its just becomes an interesting question to try to answer and as evidence is gathered more hypotheses will be put forward until there is enough evidence to form a consensus. There are some hypotheses formed already but there is not enough evidence to make any kind of reasonable judgement just yet.
What I don't get is how you can compare this to a belief in a higher power?
here is something to ponder for those of you who only believe the the physical world: Close your eyes, and twiddle your thumbs, now think what told your tumbs to twiddle? your brain right? yes, but what told your brain to tell your thumbs to twiddle? this is what i would call god. i am god.
I take it then that you subscribe to the notion that "you" exist as separate to your body?
If so, why does your behaviour / personality change when you have a stroke / brain damage?
In answer to your question - why does something else need to tell your brain to twiddle your thumbs? Why cannot the buck stop with the brain?
That's called "tyranny". If I want to spend my election day sitting in my recliner, drinking beer, and watching the Buffy marathon, that's my choice. Who the hell if the government to dictate I MUST be at a certain place at a certain time?!?!? Fuck 'em.
Normally I vote but if such a ridiculous law passed in my state, I would stay home. It would be my way of protesting that it's my body, my mind, and my liberty. Nobody owns me. I'm not a slave.
No, its not tyranny. Its your fucking responsibility as a citizen. Have you got such a warped sense of perspective that you think mandatory voting is anywhere near akin to tyranny! Deal with it - personally I would be for people losing citizenship if they fail to vote.
Even in the 19th century, Jules Verne foretold a visit to the moon, and although his astronauts were shot out of a cannon, there is much in From The Earth To The Moon that mirrors Apollo 11 in many ways.
And the part where they meet a race of moon-men...
I would say its not socialism or capitalism that got us into space to begin with. It was nationalism, the military and propaganda. Both the soviets and Americans didn't go into space as a normal part of their economic development / output - they did it to one up each other and to explore military possibilities and advantages from having a pedestal in space. Its still plays a large part in the recent revival of national space programs.
No, what he meant was that in that period of history the Dems where the centre-right and the Repbs where the centre-left. It has actually switched twice if I remember correctly. It happens as traditional power centres of parties change demographically becoming more left/right, as a result the party itself slowly changed sides.
So you have replaced your ethical standards with the Geneva convention? You seem to be implying that if the convention says we are not at fault, then its all golden?
Do you really think all civilians are happy that armed people are using them as shields? What are they going to do, ask politely that the heavy armed people leave? They cant come forward to the Americans because if they do, when the Americans leave they get killed or worse. In Afghanistan tribes that have thrown out the Taliban have been decimated by reprisal attacks because we are not able to protect them, so what choice do they have?
Baring that you still have the very practical issue that if you keep shooting up civilians because you feel they are complicit with the terrorists then they become complicit. In fact using weapons to stop a insurgency is usually counter productive (unless you manage to wipe them out very quickly before it spreads) because for every person you kill, his brothers, father, sons takes up arms against you, and all his relatives and friends have become radicalised. Even wholesale bribing is much cheaper.
When I graduated college 10 years ago, I was one of those ambitious people... I often stayed at work till 10pm to insure our products/projects met their milestones etc...
Recently we hired new hires that are of the new generation. So far, many of these people are out the door as soon as the clock hits 5, regardless the status of their projects and when the milestones were... Even when I'm travelling on business and am halfway across the world, they don't want to take any personal time to give me a hand (even if it's to upload a project they are past due on). They didn't even bother taking their work laptops home, because they don't want to "work" outside of work.
I happen to be one of those people - I don't mind helping out with a few reasonable things and putting in a few extra hours on rare occasions, but many companies expect you to work 60+ hours a week, and if you don't you are not a "team player". Well I say fuck that. You pay me - I work. When you don't pay me - I don't work.
I don't consider my life goal to help some company achieve X business goals. I know the company is not loyal to me - they will fire me if they need to - so how can they expect loyalty from me??
Your assumption that faith is contradictory to reason is false. What leads an individual to their particular faith beliefs is completely reasonable to them. Those that accept despite reason struggle to hold onto their faith.
Shall I take that on faith?:D
Faith is defined as belief without proof. i.e. dictionary.com:
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing
2. belief that is not based on proof
If your faith turned out to be reasonable it would be through no fault of your own:P. I dare say if it was based on reason, one would not call it faith but logic. Preachers would not call on you to have faith, but to be reasonable.
I have no doubt that religious people think their beliefs are reasonable - do you think that tribal shamans thought their beliefs a scam? Do you think native Americans doing a rain dance did so in the full knowledge that it doesn't affect rainfall?. Likewise people believe many things despite reason and they have no trouble holding on to it - from Nigerian scams, conspiracy theories, bogus alternative medicine, to superstition. This is because in humans reason is not all powerful, it can easily be shouted down by any number of competing emotions and desires.
People begin to lose their faith when the begin to see contradictions (i.e. for Christians it might be the violent and unjust behaviour of god in the bible, the morally dubious morals etc) but the kicker is that your brain is very very (I cant stress this enough) good at not seeing contradictory evidence when it doesn't want to (this naturally is not exclusive to the religious, and is why science requires that others replicate your results) and you can only begin to see the contradictory evidence after something has already broken this wall.
I was parodying your original post where you mentioned the continuing popularity of the bible, in what appears to me, as an argument for its validity.
The deepest and most important questions can only be answered by faith.
I think this a very sad sentiment. Faith answers nothing - why would it? Its just something you have accepted to be true without any good reason (by definition of faith). It is frankly very stupid to say that "what you feel in your heart" has some significance!! Why not just say "I don't know - no evidence has given me reason to move to any conclusion".
The fact that the humanity is incurably religious, abundantly proves of this.
This proves nothing - its one of many possible and (in my humble opinion) one unlikely explanation (i.e.: survival benefits as a rival explanation). Likewise humans have a tendency to assign human traits to inanimate objects. This, of course, proves nothing inherently true about the inanimate object!
Soon there will be more Muslims then Christians - does that mean that then Islam will be true?
If you accept anything on faith then by definition you are not following logic and reason to a conclusion. No amount of awe or popularity or wonder is going to make it any more rational.
The bible is scientifically inaccurate, it is even self-contradictory and full of things that make you wonder why anyone thinks this is the word of god - but if you take it on faith that its is the word of god then all that doesn't matter to you. However the flip side of this is that you cannot then pretend otherwise to people.
Slashdot Mirror
You do realise that that is how they make money right? They aren't putting in ads coz they want to piss you off...
If you want internet video to continue to provide you a service you have to actually accept having to view the ads.
Whoops pressed the button accidentally - that should read cannot be redeemed.
Hang on, didn't the human race have to wait for Jesus too? Anyone born between the garden of Eden and the birth of Jesus is can be redeemed.
i say however that it takes just as much "belief" and "faith" to believe in a god like being as it does to be an athiest. It's just another choice that we must make because we could spend the rest of our lives pondering the question.
People say this often but I have never understood it. Perhaps you can explain it to me. To me atheism is the "default" position - it is a state of not knowing and taking no assumptions. Imagine being born - do you come out with beliefs about higher powers? Or is one born an atheist? (one might be tempted to say people are born agnostics - but do babies really believe there is a 50/50 chance of a higher power? - I would sooner think it doesn't cross their minds)
God is a very popular hypothesis that seeks to explain a large number of "big" questions - however to me it has never been coupled with any direct supporting evidence, rather evidence is posed in a "negative" form - that is evidence is of the form "no competing explanations exist". This is evidenced by the retreating claims of all religions as science has answered questions that have previously been in the religious domain.
So to me the atheist position of no evidence for god = no belief in god is the "faithless" one. People often argue that god cannot be disproved, but this again is not reason to believe in a god - an infinite number of things cannot be disproved - so we nominally do not believe in them until evidence accumulates to support that hypothesis.
the second question is obvious, your communication device (you're brain/body) is broken therefore the message is screwed up
This may seem logical - but what happens when a communication device breaks down? Noise is generally introduced, the communication channel slows down, there are failures in communication - however patients with certain kinds of brain damage and stokes suffer specific changes in their behaviour while others are unaffected! (A common and disturbing one is the groping of relatives!). This can only be explained if the brain is the origin of those desires / actions. If the brain was a set of controls "you" utilised to get your "true" personality across you would cease to use / adapt the use of the brain and re-learn how to master those controls with the added noise. If you accept that state of the brain can totally impact on your personality then you are really saying that "you" are your brain!
And the buck cannot stop with the brain because every action has to have a reaction (and vice versa). I'm surprised however that no-one told me this in answer to my question "Who told my brain to tell my thumbs to move? You did!" This is a valid answer but then you trace it back to what told me to tell you to tell your brain etc... you see that this eventually has to trace back to something that just happened spontaneously, however spontaneous action is not something that jives well with the laws of the physical universe, this is why i say that somewhere along the line something (if you want to call it metaphysical) but something like a god perhaps had to either make the first move (outside the laws of our universe) or is perhaps still making moves. i'm guessing the latter
You say that every action has to have a reaction and vice versa but its your idea that breaks this - having an causally independent "you" that generates actions breaks the laws of physics. You explain this away but introducing a god - but I think it would be just as fair to say "you don't know". You are your brain, and you are following the laws of physics because you are fundamentally an (albeit very complex) input to output converter. Do you really think that you do anything spontaneously? How could one do anything spontaneously in a causal universe! Most of all why is it so important to be able to do things spontaneously that one would introduce illogical concepts to make it possible?
The big bang theory is not faith chief, it a hypothesis that successfully explains a large body of evidence (ie. a theory). As for where the object came from to begin with - nobody knows. And this is not a show stopper for science. Nobody adopts unquestionable dogmas, nobody says "we don't know hence god did it q.e.d.", its just becomes an interesting question to try to answer and as evidence is gathered more hypotheses will be put forward until there is enough evidence to form a consensus. There are some hypotheses formed already but there is not enough evidence to make any kind of reasonable judgement just yet.
What I don't get is how you can compare this to a belief in a higher power?
http://www.multivax.com/
:)
You can even ask it the question...
here is something to ponder for those of you who only believe the the physical world: Close your eyes, and twiddle your thumbs, now think what told your tumbs to twiddle? your brain right? yes, but what told your brain to tell your thumbs to twiddle? this is what i would call god. i am god.
I take it then that you subscribe to the notion that "you" exist as separate to your body?
If so, why does your behaviour / personality change when you have a stroke / brain damage?
In answer to your question - why does something else need to tell your brain to twiddle your thumbs? Why cannot the buck stop with the brain?
Hi I'm doing a study of why sometimes otherwise smart people believe silly things. Plz contact me - you seem like the perfect example.
That's called "tyranny". If I want to spend my election day sitting in my recliner, drinking beer, and watching the Buffy marathon, that's my choice. Who the hell if the government to dictate I MUST be at a certain place at a certain time?!?!? Fuck 'em. Normally I vote but if such a ridiculous law passed in my state, I would stay home. It would be my way of protesting that it's my body, my mind, and my liberty. Nobody owns me. I'm not a slave.
No, its not tyranny. Its your fucking responsibility as a citizen. Have you got such a warped sense of perspective that you think mandatory voting is anywhere near akin to tyranny! Deal with it - personally I would be for people losing citizenship if they fail to vote.
Tho +1 for mentioning Buffy!
Even in the 19th century, Jules Verne foretold a visit to the moon, and although his astronauts were shot out of a cannon, there is much in From The Earth To The Moon that mirrors Apollo 11 in many ways.
And the part where they meet a race of moon-men...
Coz when the octopi rise up and enslave us, we will know how to curry favour with our new masters.
I would say its not socialism or capitalism that got us into space to begin with. It was nationalism, the military and propaganda. Both the soviets and Americans didn't go into space as a normal part of their economic development / output - they did it to one up each other and to explore military possibilities and advantages from having a pedestal in space. Its still plays a large part in the recent revival of national space programs.
Mod parent up, I've just come back from the future.
How would a double blind test work on a polygraph???
If the person being tested doesn't know if he is lying then what is the point of taking the polygraph!
Try ctr+alt+delete.
No, what he meant was that in that period of history the Dems where the centre-right and the Repbs where the centre-left. It has actually switched twice if I remember correctly. It happens as traditional power centres of parties change demographically becoming more left/right, as a result the party itself slowly changed sides.
If only we knew this before, Mickey Mouse wouldn't have been such a retard.
So you have replaced your ethical standards with the Geneva convention? You seem to be implying that if the convention says we are not at fault, then its all golden?
Do you really think all civilians are happy that armed people are using them as shields? What are they going to do, ask politely that the heavy armed people leave? They cant come forward to the Americans because if they do, when the Americans leave they get killed or worse. In Afghanistan tribes that have thrown out the Taliban have been decimated by reprisal attacks because we are not able to protect them, so what choice do they have?
Baring that you still have the very practical issue that if you keep shooting up civilians because you feel they are complicit with the terrorists then they become complicit. In fact using weapons to stop a insurgency is usually counter productive (unless you manage to wipe them out very quickly before it spreads) because for every person you kill, his brothers, father, sons takes up arms against you, and all his relatives and friends have become radicalised. Even wholesale bribing is much cheaper.
Not to mention that despite the lack of care shown to them by space-x, most finished their complaints by cheering them on.
When I graduated college 10 years ago, I was one of those ambitious people... I often stayed at work till 10pm to insure our products/projects met their milestones etc... Recently we hired new hires that are of the new generation. So far, many of these people are out the door as soon as the clock hits 5, regardless the status of their projects and when the milestones were... Even when I'm travelling on business and am halfway across the world, they don't want to take any personal time to give me a hand (even if it's to upload a project they are past due on). They didn't even bother taking their work laptops home, because they don't want to "work" outside of work.
I happen to be one of those people - I don't mind helping out with a few reasonable things and putting in a few extra hours on rare occasions, but many companies expect you to work 60+ hours a week, and if you don't you are not a "team player". Well I say fuck that. You pay me - I work. When you don't pay me - I don't work.
I don't consider my life goal to help some company achieve X business goals. I know the company is not loyal to me - they will fire me if they need to - so how can they expect loyalty from me??
Your assumption that faith is contradictory to reason is false. What leads an individual to their particular faith beliefs is completely reasonable to them. Those that accept despite reason struggle to hold onto their faith.
Shall I take that on faith? :D
Faith is defined as belief without proof. i.e. dictionary.com:
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing 2. belief that is not based on proof
If your faith turned out to be reasonable it would be through no fault of your own :P. I dare say if it was based on reason, one would not call it faith but logic. Preachers would not call on you to have faith, but to be reasonable.
I have no doubt that religious people think their beliefs are reasonable - do you think that tribal shamans thought their beliefs a scam? Do you think native Americans doing a rain dance did so in the full knowledge that it doesn't affect rainfall?. Likewise people believe many things despite reason and they have no trouble holding on to it - from Nigerian scams, conspiracy theories, bogus alternative medicine, to superstition. This is because in humans reason is not all powerful, it can easily be shouted down by any number of competing emotions and desires.
People begin to lose their faith when the begin to see contradictions (i.e. for Christians it might be the violent and unjust behaviour of god in the bible, the morally dubious morals etc) but the kicker is that your brain is very very (I cant stress this enough) good at not seeing contradictory evidence when it doesn't want to (this naturally is not exclusive to the religious, and is why science requires that others replicate your results) and you can only begin to see the contradictory evidence after something has already broken this wall.
Since when has truth ever depended on popularity?
I was parodying your original post where you mentioned the continuing popularity of the bible, in what appears to me, as an argument for its validity.
The deepest and most important questions can only be answered by faith.
I think this a very sad sentiment. Faith answers nothing - why would it? Its just something you have accepted to be true without any good reason (by definition of faith). It is frankly very stupid to say that "what you feel in your heart" has some significance!! Why not just say "I don't know - no evidence has given me reason to move to any conclusion".
The fact that the humanity is incurably religious, abundantly proves of this.
This proves nothing - its one of many possible and (in my humble opinion) one unlikely explanation (i.e.: survival benefits as a rival explanation). Likewise humans have a tendency to assign human traits to inanimate objects. This, of course, proves nothing inherently true about the inanimate object!
Soon there will be more Muslims then Christians - does that mean that then Islam will be true?
If you accept anything on faith then by definition you are not following logic and reason to a conclusion. No amount of awe or popularity or wonder is going to make it any more rational.
The bible is scientifically inaccurate, it is even self-contradictory and full of things that make you wonder why anyone thinks this is the word of god - but if you take it on faith that its is the word of god then all that doesn't matter to you. However the flip side of this is that you cannot then pretend otherwise to people.
I don't know how someone would not know this unless they have never worked...