Being open minded is good, but don't be so open minded that your brain falls out. Any atheist worth his salt will consider any proposition for which you provide evidence. Assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
So where's your evidence? Handwaving and saying "could be" isn't evidence.
Because making decisions based on things that are true will work out better than making decisions based on things that are not true.
Since Faith can't be proven, inherent to its very nature, then all faiths must be equal
Exactly, they're all equally irrelevant.
It's not about right or wrong, but simply a choice about what feels the best for you.
Except that religious folk seem to have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. If you choose to fantasize about a deity, and that makes you happy, that's fine. When your fantasy starts affecting those around you, that's not OK at all.
But they were true diagnosed serious medical problems that went away immediately with prayer and haven't returned after many years.
Oh sorry I missed this bit. That's not evidence. That's coincidence. Atheists experience spontaneous remission of serious medical problems at a rate that is statistically indistinguishable from that of religious individuals.
All your post shows is that you're one of those who isn't thinking critically.
Free agency is as mythological as God. We are bound by the laws of physics. Where the laws of physics are not deterministic, they are random. Claiming that free will exists is tantamount to claiming that 'f!=ma' and that Bells theorem is false.
That only tells half the story. Belief in things that are not true affects your behavior. And when you behave as if things that are not true were true, you get undesired results. How many people are worse off today because someone else decided to believe that something false was true, and acted accordingly?
I've only given God enough thought to realize that there's no evidence for it. At that point, it's no more worthwhile to spend time thinking about God than it is to spend time thinking about the flying spaghetti monster or invisible pink unicorn. If there's no evidence for a proposition, it's as irrelevant as every other unsupported proposition.
I don't have beliefs. I have expectations based on the available evidence. IOW, theories. It's always possible that new, contradictory evidence will arise, so it's never appropriate to "hold a premise to be true". The best you can do is collect enough evidence such that it would be unreasonable to withhold provisional consent. The "provisional" is important.
As for whether religions have merit, the prevalence of religion would indicate that it has at least some aspects that confer a selective advantage. That may or may not be taken as merit, depending on your value system.
I personally consider the possibility of God in light of discoveries related to quantum physics, relativity, evolution, math and statistics... I don't consider these to contradict the existence of God (since they strictly do not), but to explain how little we still know and to understand the tools God could use to work with.
But, God is omnipotent right? He doesn't need tools.
See how just a little thought about physics causes you to reject one of the most fundamental claims about God, his omnipotence.
The love of a mother is at least potentially falsifiable. Everything we know about the mind indicates that it is entirely comprised of patterns of neural activity in the brain. With sophisticated enough technology, it's entirely possible in principle to observe those patterns and determine whether love is being experienced.
Or you could argue that emotions have no physical basis and that my mother could be a philosophical zombie. This is entirely possible, but since it's empirically indistinguishable from "actual" love the distinction is meaningless. I don't actually care wihch is true, and I'm not even sure it's cromulent to assign a truth value to either.
If you want to show that the bible is made up, or its text is corrupt, I'm going to put you through scientific method process and axiomatic logic reasoning to establish your case.
The burden of proof is on you. Without any evidence that your book is not just another book of ancient mythology, why should we give it any more creedence than the works of Homer?
Devout religious belief is about much more than taking the religion's documents literally.
You're right. It's about believing things to be true without evidence. Whether it's written in a holy book or not, it's never OK to believe things without evidence. If we have no evidence, an honest person says "I don't really know".
afterwards probably ponder in jail what good your token resistance did while your child is raised in some state orphanage.
At least then the child will grow up knowing what relationship he has to the state. This 4 year old child will never trust authority again. She has first hand experience with the depravity that comes with authority.
PDF is the worst possible format for e-reading. Suppose you want to enlarge the text and have it reflow to fit your screen? Even plain ASCII text is preferable to PDF.
The printing costs of a book are negligible in comparison with the editorial, typesetting, proof-reading and other costs associatd with releasing a book.
Hire a freelance editor, typeset it yourself in LaTeX, and crowd source the proof-reading. I bet that's much cheaper than buying into the publishing behemoth.
What terrorists? You mean the dupes the FBI keeps entrapping? Or the insurgents half a world away who are just trying to repel a foreign occupation?
No, the TSA itself is a greater danger than any threat from terrorism. More people have died on the roads because they chose to drive instead of get groped than died in 9/11.
Employees of the TSA deserve the same fate delivered to Bin Laden.
Slashdot Mirror
Being open minded is good, but don't be so open minded that your brain falls out. Any atheist worth his salt will consider any proposition for which you provide evidence. Assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
So where's your evidence? Handwaving and saying "could be" isn't evidence.
In that case, you have exactly as much free will as a tree or a rock.
Why does it *have* to be real?
Because making decisions based on things that are true will work out better than making decisions based on things that are not true.
Since Faith can't be proven, inherent to its very nature, then all faiths must be equal
Exactly, they're all equally irrelevant.
It's not about right or wrong, but simply a choice about what feels the best for you.
Except that religious folk seem to have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. If you choose to fantasize about a deity, and that makes you happy, that's fine. When your fantasy starts affecting those around you, that's not OK at all.
But they were true diagnosed serious medical problems that went away immediately with prayer and haven't returned after many years.
Oh sorry I missed this bit. That's not evidence. That's coincidence. Atheists experience spontaneous remission of serious medical problems at a rate that is statistically indistinguishable from that of religious individuals.
All your post shows is that you're one of those who isn't thinking critically.
The evidence I have was either directly observed by me
Great, care to share some of that evidence with us? That's all we ask for, some evidence. No one ever comes forth with any.
Free agency is therefor gone in this scenario
Free agency is as mythological as God. We are bound by the laws of physics. Where the laws of physics are not deterministic, they are random. Claiming that free will exists is tantamount to claiming that 'f!=ma' and that Bells theorem is false.
That only tells half the story. Belief in things that are not true affects your behavior. And when you behave as if things that are not true were true, you get undesired results. How many people are worse off today because someone else decided to believe that something false was true, and acted accordingly?
I've only given God enough thought to realize that there's no evidence for it. At that point, it's no more worthwhile to spend time thinking about God than it is to spend time thinking about the flying spaghetti monster or invisible pink unicorn. If there's no evidence for a proposition, it's as irrelevant as every other unsupported proposition.
I don't have beliefs. I have expectations based on the available evidence. IOW, theories. It's always possible that new, contradictory evidence will arise, so it's never appropriate to "hold a premise to be true". The best you can do is collect enough evidence such that it would be unreasonable to withhold provisional consent. The "provisional" is important.
As for whether religions have merit, the prevalence of religion would indicate that it has at least some aspects that confer a selective advantage. That may or may not be taken as merit, depending on your value system.
I personally consider the possibility of God in light of discoveries related to quantum physics, relativity, evolution, math and statistics... I don't consider these to contradict the existence of God (since they strictly do not), but to explain how little we still know and to understand the tools God could use to work with.
But, God is omnipotent right? He doesn't need tools.
See how just a little thought about physics causes you to reject one of the most fundamental claims about God, his omnipotence.
Yes, we do all have beliefs. But it's the duty of the thinking man to be as parsimonious with belief as possible.
The love of a mother is at least potentially falsifiable. Everything we know about the mind indicates that it is entirely comprised of patterns of neural activity in the brain. With sophisticated enough technology, it's entirely possible in principle to observe those patterns and determine whether love is being experienced.
Or you could argue that emotions have no physical basis and that my mother could be a philosophical zombie. This is entirely possible, but since it's empirically indistinguishable from "actual" love the distinction is meaningless. I don't actually care wihch is true, and I'm not even sure it's cromulent to assign a truth value to either.
Because people who believe typically do not move away or get swayed from their beliefs.
In other words, people tho believe typically do not think analytically about their beliefs.
If you want to show that the bible is made up, or its text is corrupt, I'm going to put you through scientific method process and axiomatic logic reasoning to establish your case.
The burden of proof is on you. Without any evidence that your book is not just another book of ancient mythology, why should we give it any more creedence than the works of Homer?
Devout religious belief is about much more than taking the religion's documents literally.
You're right. It's about believing things to be true without evidence. Whether it's written in a holy book or not, it's never OK to believe things without evidence. If we have no evidence, an honest person says "I don't really know".
Duh is right. Considering that belief is the opposite of thinking, they would have to be negatively correlated.
But no book would have been able to teach me about automata theory or linear algebra and differential equations like my college courses did.
Does that include the course texts?
afterwards probably ponder in jail what good your token resistance did while your child is raised in some state orphanage.
At least then the child will grow up knowing what relationship he has to the state. This 4 year old child will never trust authority again. She has first hand experience with the depravity that comes with authority.
Authority is the enemy.
A tantrum is what the TSA did in response.
PDF is the worst possible format for e-reading. Suppose you want to enlarge the text and have it reflow to fit your screen? Even plain ASCII text is preferable to PDF.
The printing costs of a book are negligible in comparison with the editorial, typesetting, proof-reading and other costs associatd with releasing a book.
Hire a freelance editor, typeset it yourself in LaTeX, and crowd source the proof-reading. I bet that's much cheaper than buying into the publishing behemoth.
What terrorists? You mean the dupes the FBI keeps entrapping? Or the insurgents half a world away who are just trying to repel a foreign occupation?
No, the TSA itself is a greater danger than any threat from terrorism. More people have died on the roads because they chose to drive instead of get groped than died in 9/11.
Employees of the TSA deserve the same fate delivered to Bin Laden.
It's not just the TSA. It's the entire government. Everything, from the SEC to the FBI is just theatre.
And if that doesn't work here's another source.
What if your connection is being watched?
Oh, der.