the surveillance agencies need to be able to state their position.
Surveillance agencies should not even have an opinion. Their job is to do what The People tell them to do. Their job is not to advocate for any position.
For example, he may have worked with Wikileaks, been in contact with Snowden, or have some other non-Snowden issue that caused Customs to be very interested in him.
So he exercised his rights to free speech and he gets harassed and stolen from by the government, and you're OK with this? Shame on you.
I'm pretty sure that New Zealand customs does not randomly target backpackers for confiscation of electronics and this is not an example of a police state gone mad.
Confiscating electronics is ALWAYS an example of a police state gone mad. Electronics contain information. Confiscating information is a violation of our rights to free speech.
I'm sure he knows the real reason they took his stuff
You seem rather persistent in insisting that what you consider "necessary" or "worthwhile" is objectively so, demonstrated simply because you say it is
Not at all. I keep asking what separates the unprovable God hypothesis from other hypotheses (e.g. the teapot, the FSM, etc.). I'm asking *you* to tell me why the God hypothesis is worthwhile, when infinitely many other hypotheses that are equally (un)supported are not. (I presume you'd agree that it's not worth seriously considering the existence of a teapot orbiting the sun).
The scope of "worthwhile" is tautologically defined by the reality you already accept--if it is an extension of philosophical naturalism, it is worthwhile, if it is not, it is not worthwhile.
No, you misunderstand. It's not about me, you do it too. There are infinitely many potentially true things, and you only have finite time to consider them. How do you distinguish between the potentially true things you consider, and the ones that you don't?
You don't see this stance as rather... limiting?
Humans are limited creatures. It does us no good to pretend we know things that we actually do not.
it is simply untrue that knowing "God did it" tells us nothing. At minimum, it tells us God did it.
But that adds no explanatory power to our models. Saying "God did it" does not allow us to make more accurate predictions about observable reality. That's the same as telling us nothing.
My experiences are consistent with many others' as per the expectations of the religion. If there is disparity, you haven't demonstrated it.
"many" others. Try "all others". It only takes one contradictory observation to disprove a hypothesis.
So what? You get "different answers" asking anything from any diverse group, whether it be in politics, art, or for that matter, physics. From this we infer none of the positions is correct?
Politics and art are matters of opinion. In physics, no you don't get different measurements. If you get different measurements for the same phenomenon, you either discovered a novel effect(e.g. you weren't actually observing the same phenomenon), or your apparatus is broken.
Here's an example. The OPERA experiment measured the speed of neutrinos. Every experiment in every laboratory everywhere in the world had already determined through extensive observation that the speed of light is the fastest any particle with mass can go. This one experiment contradicted decades worth of experimental evidence, and got huge amounts of press coverage. As well they should have, it would have turned physics upside down if it were true. But as it turns out, it was a loose cable.
So no, it's not OK to get different answers. If your revelation tells you one thing, and another person's revelation tells them something contradictory, at least one of you is wrong. Since you are both using the same technique, you have to conclude that the technique is unreliable.
Remarkable, given it was presented in this very thread, to you. You neither challenged the evidence nor acknowledged it. "Not seeing it", however, seems remarkably unlikely.
No idea what you're talking about here. Link or quote.
You have not explained how or why hypoxia results in these specific experiences, consistently.
Nor do I need to. That we do not have an explanation for consciousness currently does not mean that deity is required.
Which, ironically, is precisely what you just did. Conjecturing and asserting your conjecture regarding the writings is true.
I did not assert that my conjecture was true. I asserted that it was plausible. If a plausible naturalistic explanation exists, there's no reason for us to assume a supernatural explanation. Remember, I said it was important that evidence be *inconsistant* with the model you are trying to reject. Currently your "evide
Leave aside your disdain for the term--what is it that you consider fundamentally different, epistemologically, between religious faith and, say, the "undemonstrated belief" that String Theory is valid?
String theory is a worthwhile exercise because it potentially explains a real gap in our knowledge. If true, it could explain the discrepancies between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Eventually the models will become sophisticated enough and technology will advance to the point where something testable will fall out. And if it doesn't, theoretical physics is a small investment that has paid for itself a million times over already.
God on the other hand is not needed to explain any natural phenomena. If there is a phenomenon we cannot currently explain, saying "god did it" does not actually increase our understanding.
I have tested it using the recommended methodology for testing for spiritual phenomena
There are only phenomena, and the recommended methodology is the same for all phenomena. The scientific method. Valid observations have to be repeatable, verifiable by third parties, and if you're going to accept or discard a hypothesis they have to be compatible with only one truth value for that hypothesis. Your proposed method fails all of those points.
How does that matter?
It matters if you care about accuracy. If I weigh an object, and get 5 kilos, then you weigh the same object and get 8 kilos, we'd throw away the scale. It's not a reliable tool.
On the other hand, if you ask your deity how old the Earth is, and a Hindu asks his deity how old the Earth is, you'll get different answers. Your measurements are unreliable, yet you're not willing to throw away your instrument.
What is true is contingent on what you've personally seen? Not at all. That was not a claim that religion is false because I have not seen evidence. That was an invitation for you to present evidence.
I just posted peer-reviewed information supporting the veracity of theism.
You posted a peer reviewed paper supporting the existence of subjective experiences during extreme hypoxia. That is entirely consistent with a naturalistic explanation of consciousness.
I also posted information regarding its predictions (i.e. "prophecy") along with a survey of proposed improbability if it were random guessing.
Self-fullfilling prophesies, generous readings, confirmation bias, and retconning.
e.g. I'd be surprised if there weren't a dozen individuals who fit the very nonspecific description in that first prophesy, but were not successful enough for record to survive.
e.g. for the second prophesy, what evidence is there that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, besides gospels written decades after his death by people with a vested interest in linking him to messianic prophesy?
e.g. You don't think it's likely the author of Matthew engaged in some poetic license? How would he have known exactly what the cost of the bribe was?
And so on...
That doesn't mean that it can't be, that is, that there is a correct resolution to the question, and that scientific method cannot address.
Again, just because the scientific method can't address a question doesn't mean it's OK to make things up.
And how do you make this determination of what is "worth consideration" a priori?
You don't. You follow the evidence. You observe the world and make a model of it based on those observations. Then you look for predictions made by that model, and see if they match further observations. So far there are no observations that require a God to be part of our model, and our model makes no predictions about the existence or non-existence of God. As LaPlace apocryphally said to Napoleon, "I have no need of that hypothesis".
If I see Bill shoot Steve in a back alley, I have all the evidence I need that Bill shot Steve. I do not need to replicate the event for you or prove it
"created with apparent age" is how they explain that...done...**dusts off hands**
Ah, but what apparent age? If it was created 5000 years ago to look 4 billion years old, it could just as easily have been created 5 seconds ago. Why choose one over the other?
Because the bible says it was 5000 years old? Well the bible could have been created 5 seconds ago to make you think the Earth was created 5000 years ago.
And now they're ruined by their own "logic". Allowing the miracle of "apparent age" doesn't actually strengthen their position at all. The more miracles you allow, the more potentially true things there are, and the less likely it is that your specific version of events is true.
just stop the whole line of thinking...
And that's why theism is harmful. It requires you to stop thinking. Never stop thinking.
stop trying to disprove something with logic that is personal opinion....
Stop having personal opinions about factual claims about objective reality.
all I have really proven is that you cannot PROVE or DISPROVE the existence of a supernatural god, buddah, Xenu or whatever with logic or scientific inquiry
And I completely agree with this statement. Now the question is, why do you treat the idea of God differently than any other unprovable idea?
Because faith, right? The problem with that is that people have faith in mutually conflicting ideas, so we know that faith cannot be a reliable way of determining facts.
you can't prove or disprove it
That you can neither prove nor disprove something is not license to make any claims you want and have them taken seriously.
It's all just opinion too...it's your **opinion** that the proper analogy to believing in 'god' is [insert something ludicrous and nonsensical]
Let me elaborate on this. It's not just that believing in god is equivalent to believing in an absurdity. It's that every unsupported proposition is equivalent. Instead of a teapot, we could presume a 4 kilogram lump of iron is orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars. Or a 4 kilogram lump of ice. Or a 5 kilogram lump. Maybe it's between Venus and Earth. And so on.
You can come up with infinitely many plausible propositions that are unsupported by evidence. We don't spend any time thinking or arguing about any of these. Why? Because until there's evidence there's no reason at all.
Now we don't have evidence for any of these propositions. So we don't give them any consideration on a daily basis. Why then do we consider the equally unsupported existence of God?
Wrong. Science requires faith in quite a few unprovable axioms, right at its core.
True, but that doesn't require faith. We can accept propositions provisionally if they are useful. We have mountains of technology that could only have been created by presuming the scientific method works. We have zero technology that could only have been created by faith.
Identity, that things are what they are, and are so consistently, being one.
If things aren't what they are(whatever that means), it does not affect the outcome of our experiments or the models we come up with to explain those results.
No science proceeds without starting with hypotheses, the plausibility of such ultimately being true being supported, at that point, only by the equivalent of faith.
Hypotheses are testable, and they are discarded when they fail tests. That's not equivalent to faith at all.
To avoid the common misrepresentation, "faith" does not mean "belief without evidence", that's simply an intentionally-false statement of what theists mean by it, made by atheists, to fit a pre-built argument. "Confidence in the face of incomplete information" is an accurate rendering of what theists actually mean.
I don't see a difference. If you're claiming that "incomplete information" is greater than "zero information", I'd like to see some of that information that leads you to be confidant about the existence of anything supernatural. I've never seen any.
Either "rock is good" or "rock is not good" is a factual claim. One or the other is true, neither is provable.
The problem with that is that "good" is not well defined. Propositional logic does not apply to squishy english terms. Av~A doesn't work when A means different things to different people.
A better example concerning unprovably true statements would be Godel's theorems. But that still doesn't help your argument. That unprovable statements exist does not imply that they are all worth consideration. Hell, we don't even have the time to evaluate all the potentially (dis)provable statements.
"The theist" can certainly hold the position that his belief is one of opinion, rather than fact.
You can have an opinion about a factual claim, but that doesn't make the claim non-factual. You're free to have whatever opinions you want, but your opinion about objective reality is worth nothing if it is not supported by evidence.
thanks for chiming in w/ an explanation of the teapot thing...I still think its a complete waste of time to consider but thnx just the same
That's the point! The teapot is entirely a waste of time to consider. Just like every other unsupportable hypothesis, such as the existence of God.
It's all just opinion too...it's your **opinion** that the proper analogy to believing in 'god' is [insert something ludicrous and nonsensical]
What is the meaningful difference between the God hypothesis and the orbital teapot hypothesis? They are supported by the same amount of evidence, so they should be treated equally. That's not an opinion, that's simple reasoning.
Science tells me that its understand of the laws of physics stops at a black hole's singularity? Does that mean I disbelieve the singularity exists because science has no way of describing the singularity?
It means you don't make any factual claims about the nature of the singularity that you can't support with an evidence based model. We can say it exists, because the model we built to fit the actual observations we made predicts that it does. There are no such models that predict the existance of a God.
Superstring theory tells me that 10 dimensions of spacetime exist and bosonic string theory 26. Is it then possible that, if true, we can't (yet? ever?) comprehend events or life that takes place beyond our 3 dimensions of existence or that events from these dimensions can affect the reality of ours?
If the events inside those dimensions affect us, we can measure the effect. So far, all effects measured have followed fairly simple rules, at least on the relevant scales. There's no room for miracles in a world ruled by mathematical physics.
Why is it when we speak of entangled quantum particles separated by billions of miles affecting each other instantaneously as a valid theory
Because there is experimental evidence for quantum entanglement. Just because you find the reasoning incomprehensible doesn't mean that everything incomprehensible is equally valid.
yet the very real experiences a significant amount of humanity have had and can only explain that it was God (does it matter that they call that experience Buddha, Jesus, Marduk, or Zeus?) as ignorant ramblings?
Further, there is no experience any human has had that can only be explained as God. Trancendental experiences are simply altered states of mind, a slightly different configuration of the biological computer in our head. Trancendental experiences are no more evidence of God than schizophrenia is evidence of the devil.
That is, why exactly hasn't religion gone away after all this time?
Because it's a meme with a lot of selective advantages. None of which have to do with it being true.
Personally, I choose to keep a more open mind to possible explanations of reality than Dawkins and (insert religious fundamentalist figurehead here) choose to.
Do you think anyone would have come up with wave particle duality if scientists weren't open minded? We're willing to consider anything, if there's evidence. If there's no evidence, then why waste your time?
Not all questions are resolvable by empiricism and scientific method
That's true. But there are zero questions resolvable by faith. Not if you care about accuracy. There are lots of things that are going to be unknowable. That's OK, we don't need to make up answers.
Epistemology is far wider than that. Is rock music good? Prove it.
That's an opinion. The theist makes a factual claim.
First, the teapot doesn't prove God doesn't exist. There could in fact be a God, just as there could be a teapot in orbit around the sun. Or maybe not a teapot, but a thermos, or perhaps a rubber chicken with a pully in the middle. The point is anything *could* be true. If we believed in everything that can't be disproven, we'd be very confused indeed. But if you do it the other way, and only believe in that which can be proven, the world makes much more sense.
Second, you bear the same burden of proof when you try to convince yourself of something. Anything less is being dishonest with yourself.
But the point remains, no one is FORCED to believe in the statue. I disagree with the intent that you feel it is somehow forcing you to believe
Would you feel the same way if it were core principles of Scientology? Would that not represent a de facto endorsement of the tenents of Scientology?
the 10 commandments have been on state capitols for as long as this country has been around, its nothing new
And this bit of hypocrisy is long overdue for abolition.
one does not have to believe in god to respect others.
Quite correct. And believing in god does not absolve you from respecting others either. Using public funds and public property to promote your religion is unequivocally disresepectful to citizens who think differently.
in other words, you do NOT have the right to not be offended anymore than someone of a different faith/non faith
A hindu, buddhist, or pagan would be just as troubled by state sponsored proselytization.
Sin or fallacy? I've never met anyone who believes that believing in a deity is a sin. I've met plenty, myself included, who believe that believing in a deity requires at least one fallacy.
Emulation is perfectly legal. If you own a copy of the game, you are permitted to format shift it for the purposes of compatibility. From the US Copyright Act Section 117:
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.â" Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
You could say the same thing about the original Xbox. It's essentially a PIII with an nVidia GPU and a custom version of Win2K. Still no decent emulator.
I'd rather see people working on emulating the last generations consoles. Or the one before that even. The PS2 has one emulator, PCSX2, which is about 80% compatible. The original Xbox has no currently developed emulators.
There's no shortage of ways to play old 8bit and 16bit games. There is a shortage of ways to play last generation games. When our 360s and PS3s finally give up in 5 to 10 years, there's a large number of games that simply won't be playable anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
the surveillance agencies need to be able to state their position.
Surveillance agencies should not even have an opinion. Their job is to do what The People tell them to do. Their job is not to advocate for any position.
For example, he may have worked with Wikileaks, been in contact with Snowden, or have some other non-Snowden issue that caused Customs to be very interested in him.
So he exercised his rights to free speech and he gets harassed and stolen from by the government, and you're OK with this? Shame on you.
I'm pretty sure that New Zealand customs does not randomly target backpackers for confiscation of electronics and this is not an example of a police state gone mad.
Confiscating electronics is ALWAYS an example of a police state gone mad. Electronics contain information. Confiscating information is a violation of our rights to free speech.
I'm sure he knows the real reason they took his stuff
Blame the victim. Shame on you.
In this world you cannot be both ridiculously reasonable and neutral on most things.
Don't they know what happens when you fsck a server in the alps?
You seem rather persistent in insisting that what you consider "necessary" or "worthwhile" is objectively so, demonstrated simply because you say it is
Not at all. I keep asking what separates the unprovable God hypothesis from other hypotheses (e.g. the teapot, the FSM, etc.). I'm asking *you* to tell me why the God hypothesis is worthwhile, when infinitely many other hypotheses that are equally (un)supported are not. (I presume you'd agree that it's not worth seriously considering the existence of a teapot orbiting the sun).
The scope of "worthwhile" is tautologically defined by the reality you already accept--if it is an extension of philosophical naturalism, it is worthwhile, if it is not, it is not worthwhile.
No, you misunderstand. It's not about me, you do it too. There are infinitely many potentially true things, and you only have finite time to consider them. How do you distinguish between the potentially true things you consider, and the ones that you don't?
You don't see this stance as rather... limiting?
Humans are limited creatures. It does us no good to pretend we know things that we actually do not.
it is simply untrue that knowing "God did it" tells us nothing. At minimum, it tells us God did it.
But that adds no explanatory power to our models. Saying "God did it" does not allow us to make more accurate predictions about observable reality. That's the same as telling us nothing.
My experiences are consistent with many others' as per the expectations of the religion. If there is disparity, you haven't demonstrated it.
"many" others. Try "all others". It only takes one contradictory observation to disprove a hypothesis.
So what? You get "different answers" asking anything from any diverse group, whether it be in politics, art, or for that matter, physics. From this we infer none of the positions is correct?
Politics and art are matters of opinion. In physics, no you don't get different measurements. If you get different measurements for the same phenomenon, you either discovered a novel effect(e.g. you weren't actually observing the same phenomenon), or your apparatus is broken.
Here's an example. The OPERA experiment measured the speed of neutrinos. Every experiment in every laboratory everywhere in the world had already determined through extensive observation that the speed of light is the fastest any particle with mass can go. This one experiment contradicted decades worth of experimental evidence, and got huge amounts of press coverage. As well they should have, it would have turned physics upside down if it were true. But as it turns out, it was a loose cable.
So no, it's not OK to get different answers. If your revelation tells you one thing, and another person's revelation tells them something contradictory, at least one of you is wrong. Since you are both using the same technique, you have to conclude that the technique is unreliable.
Remarkable, given it was presented in this very thread, to you. You neither challenged the evidence nor acknowledged it. "Not seeing it", however, seems remarkably unlikely.
No idea what you're talking about here. Link or quote.
You have not explained how or why hypoxia results in these specific experiences, consistently.
Nor do I need to. That we do not have an explanation for consciousness currently does not mean that deity is required.
Which, ironically, is precisely what you just did. Conjecturing and asserting your conjecture regarding the writings is true.
I did not assert that my conjecture was true. I asserted that it was plausible. If a plausible naturalistic explanation exists, there's no reason for us to assume a supernatural explanation. Remember, I said it was important that evidence be *inconsistant* with the model you are trying to reject. Currently your "evide
Holy crap, I agree with cold fjord!
Leave aside your disdain for the term--what is it that you consider fundamentally different, epistemologically, between religious faith and, say, the "undemonstrated belief" that String Theory is valid?
String theory is a worthwhile exercise because it potentially explains a real gap in our knowledge. If true, it could explain the discrepancies between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Eventually the models will become sophisticated enough and technology will advance to the point where something testable will fall out. And if it doesn't, theoretical physics is a small investment that has paid for itself a million times over already.
God on the other hand is not needed to explain any natural phenomena. If there is a phenomenon we cannot currently explain, saying "god did it" does not actually increase our understanding.
I have tested it using the recommended methodology for testing for spiritual phenomena
There are only phenomena, and the recommended methodology is the same for all phenomena. The scientific method. Valid observations have to be repeatable, verifiable by third parties, and if you're going to accept or discard a hypothesis they have to be compatible with only one truth value for that hypothesis. Your proposed method fails all of those points.
How does that matter?
It matters if you care about accuracy. If I weigh an object, and get 5 kilos, then you weigh the same object and get 8 kilos, we'd throw away the scale. It's not a reliable tool.
On the other hand, if you ask your deity how old the Earth is, and a Hindu asks his deity how old the Earth is, you'll get different answers. Your measurements are unreliable, yet you're not willing to throw away your instrument.
What is true is contingent on what you've personally seen?
Not at all. That was not a claim that religion is false because I have not seen evidence. That was an invitation for you to present evidence.
I just posted peer-reviewed information supporting the veracity of theism.
You posted a peer reviewed paper supporting the existence of subjective experiences during extreme hypoxia. That is entirely consistent with a naturalistic explanation of consciousness.
I also posted information regarding its predictions (i.e. "prophecy") along with a survey of proposed improbability if it were random guessing.
Self-fullfilling prophesies, generous readings, confirmation bias, and retconning.
e.g. I'd be surprised if there weren't a dozen individuals who fit the very nonspecific description in that first prophesy, but were not successful enough for record to survive.
e.g. for the second prophesy, what evidence is there that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, besides gospels written decades after his death by people with a vested interest in linking him to messianic prophesy?
e.g. You don't think it's likely the author of Matthew engaged in some poetic license? How would he have known exactly what the cost of the bribe was?
And so on...
That doesn't mean that it can't be, that is, that there is a correct resolution to the question, and that scientific method cannot address.
Again, just because the scientific method can't address a question doesn't mean it's OK to make things up.
And how do you make this determination of what is "worth consideration" a priori?
You don't. You follow the evidence. You observe the world and make a model of it based on those observations. Then you look for predictions made by that model, and see if they match further observations. So far there are no observations that require a God to be part of our model, and our model makes no predictions about the existence or non-existence of God. As LaPlace apocryphally said to Napoleon, "I have no need of that hypothesis".
If I see Bill shoot Steve in a back alley, I have all the evidence I need that Bill shot Steve. I do not need to replicate the event for you or prove it
"created with apparent age" is how they explain that...done...**dusts off hands**
Ah, but what apparent age? If it was created 5000 years ago to look 4 billion years old, it could just as easily have been created 5 seconds ago. Why choose one over the other?
Because the bible says it was 5000 years old? Well the bible could have been created 5 seconds ago to make you think the Earth was created 5000 years ago.
And now they're ruined by their own "logic". Allowing the miracle of "apparent age" doesn't actually strengthen their position at all. The more miracles you allow, the more potentially true things there are, and the less likely it is that your specific version of events is true.
just stop the whole line of thinking...
And that's why theism is harmful. It requires you to stop thinking. Never stop thinking.
stop trying to disprove something with logic that is personal opinion....
Stop having personal opinions about factual claims about objective reality.
all I have really proven is that you cannot PROVE or DISPROVE the existence of a supernatural god, buddah, Xenu or whatever with logic or scientific inquiry
And I completely agree with this statement. Now the question is, why do you treat the idea of God differently than any other unprovable idea?
Because faith, right? The problem with that is that people have faith in mutually conflicting ideas, so we know that faith cannot be a reliable way of determining facts.
you can't prove or disprove it
That you can neither prove nor disprove something is not license to make any claims you want and have them taken seriously.
That is a very clever hijacking of a theistic argument. Thanks for the comment.
In Europe we have an increasing problem with racism and hate speech, especially on anonymous internet forums.
Which is appropriately countered with more speech.
In the real world, solitary confinement is often used as extrajudicial punishment by unaccountable authorities.
It's all just opinion too...it's your **opinion** that the proper analogy to believing in 'god' is [insert something ludicrous and nonsensical]
Let me elaborate on this. It's not just that believing in god is equivalent to believing in an absurdity. It's that every unsupported proposition is equivalent. Instead of a teapot, we could presume a 4 kilogram lump of iron is orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars. Or a 4 kilogram lump of ice. Or a 5 kilogram lump. Maybe it's between Venus and Earth. And so on.
You can come up with infinitely many plausible propositions that are unsupported by evidence. We don't spend any time thinking or arguing about any of these. Why? Because until there's evidence there's no reason at all.
Now we don't have evidence for any of these propositions. So we don't give them any consideration on a daily basis. Why then do we consider the equally unsupported existence of God?
Why aren't questions resolvable by faith. How do you know?
You answered your own question right there. If you never know whether the question is resolved, it's not really resolved is it?
Wrong. Science requires faith in quite a few unprovable axioms, right at its core.
True, but that doesn't require faith. We can accept propositions provisionally if they are useful. We have mountains of technology that could only have been created by presuming the scientific method works. We have zero technology that could only have been created by faith.
Identity, that things are what they are, and are so consistently, being one.
If things aren't what they are(whatever that means), it does not affect the outcome of our experiments or the models we come up with to explain those results.
No science proceeds without starting with hypotheses, the plausibility of such ultimately being true being supported, at that point, only by the equivalent of faith.
Hypotheses are testable, and they are discarded when they fail tests. That's not equivalent to faith at all.
To avoid the common misrepresentation, "faith" does not mean "belief without evidence", that's simply an intentionally-false statement of what theists mean by it, made by atheists, to fit a pre-built argument. "Confidence in the face of incomplete information" is an accurate rendering of what theists actually mean.
I don't see a difference. If you're claiming that "incomplete information" is greater than "zero information", I'd like to see some of that information that leads you to be confidant about the existence of anything supernatural. I've never seen any.
Either "rock is good" or "rock is not good" is a factual claim. One or the other is true, neither is provable.
The problem with that is that "good" is not well defined. Propositional logic does not apply to squishy english terms. Av~A doesn't work when A means different things to different people.
A better example concerning unprovably true statements would be Godel's theorems. But that still doesn't help your argument. That unprovable statements exist does not imply that they are all worth consideration. Hell, we don't even have the time to evaluate all the potentially (dis)provable statements.
"The theist" can certainly hold the position that his belief is one of opinion, rather than fact.
You can have an opinion about a factual claim, but that doesn't make the claim non-factual. You're free to have whatever opinions you want, but your opinion about objective reality is worth nothing if it is not supported by evidence.
thanks for chiming in w/ an explanation of the teapot thing...I still think its a complete waste of time to consider but thnx just the same
That's the point! The teapot is entirely a waste of time to consider. Just like every other unsupportable hypothesis, such as the existence of God.
It's all just opinion too...it's your **opinion** that the proper analogy to believing in 'god' is [insert something ludicrous and nonsensical]
What is the meaningful difference between the God hypothesis and the orbital teapot hypothesis? They are supported by the same amount of evidence, so they should be treated equally. That's not an opinion, that's simple reasoning.
Science tells me that its understand of the laws of physics stops at a black hole's singularity? Does that mean I disbelieve the singularity exists because science has no way of describing the singularity?
It means you don't make any factual claims about the nature of the singularity that you can't support with an evidence based model. We can say it exists, because the model we built to fit the actual observations we made predicts that it does. There are no such models that predict the existance of a God.
Superstring theory tells me that 10 dimensions of spacetime exist and bosonic string theory 26. Is it then possible that, if true, we can't (yet? ever?) comprehend events or life that takes place beyond our 3 dimensions of existence or that events from these dimensions can affect the reality of ours?
If the events inside those dimensions affect us, we can measure the effect. So far, all effects measured have followed fairly simple rules, at least on the relevant scales. There's no room for miracles in a world ruled by mathematical physics.
Why is it when we speak of entangled quantum particles separated by billions of miles affecting each other instantaneously as a valid theory
Because there is experimental evidence for quantum entanglement. Just because you find the reasoning incomprehensible doesn't mean that everything incomprehensible is equally valid.
yet the very real experiences a significant amount of humanity have had and can only explain that it was God (does it matter that they call that experience Buddha, Jesus, Marduk, or Zeus?) as ignorant ramblings?
Further, there is no experience any human has had that can only be explained as God. Trancendental experiences are simply altered states of mind, a slightly different configuration of the biological computer in our head. Trancendental experiences are no more evidence of God than schizophrenia is evidence of the devil.
That is, why exactly hasn't religion gone away after all this time?
Because it's a meme with a lot of selective advantages. None of which have to do with it being true.
Personally, I choose to keep a more open mind to possible explanations of reality than Dawkins and (insert religious fundamentalist figurehead here) choose to.
Do you think anyone would have come up with wave particle duality if scientists weren't open minded? We're willing to consider anything, if there's evidence. If there's no evidence, then why waste your time?
Not all questions are resolvable by empiricism and scientific method
That's true. But there are zero questions resolvable by faith. Not if you care about accuracy. There are lots of things that are going to be unknowable. That's OK, we don't need to make up answers.
Epistemology is far wider than that. Is rock music good? Prove it.
That's an opinion. The theist makes a factual claim.
First, the teapot doesn't prove God doesn't exist. There could in fact be a God, just as there could be a teapot in orbit around the sun. Or maybe not a teapot, but a thermos, or perhaps a rubber chicken with a pully in the middle. The point is anything *could* be true. If we believed in everything that can't be disproven, we'd be very confused indeed. But if you do it the other way, and only believe in that which can be proven, the world makes much more sense.
Second, you bear the same burden of proof when you try to convince yourself of something. Anything less is being dishonest with yourself.
But the point remains, no one is FORCED to believe in the statue. I disagree with the intent that you feel it is somehow forcing you to believe
Would you feel the same way if it were core principles of Scientology? Would that not represent a de facto endorsement of the tenents of Scientology?
the 10 commandments have been on state capitols for as long as this country has been around, its nothing new
And this bit of hypocrisy is long overdue for abolition.
one does not have to believe in god to respect others.
Quite correct. And believing in god does not absolve you from respecting others either. Using public funds and public property to promote your religion is unequivocally disresepectful to citizens who think differently.
in other words, you do NOT have the right to not be offended anymore than someone of a different faith/non faith
A hindu, buddhist, or pagan would be just as troubled by state sponsored proselytization.
The new pope is just better at PR. Let me know when his bishops start enforcing progressive policies in their dioceses.
Sin or fallacy? I've never met anyone who believes that believing in a deity is a sin. I've met plenty, myself included, who believe that believing in a deity requires at least one fallacy.
Emulation is perfectly legal. If you own a copy of the game, you are permitted to format shift it for the purposes of compatibility. From the US Copyright Act Section 117:
You could say the same thing about the original Xbox. It's essentially a PIII with an nVidia GPU and a custom version of Win2K. Still no decent emulator.
I'd rather see people working on emulating the last generations consoles. Or the one before that even. The PS2 has one emulator, PCSX2, which is about 80% compatible. The original Xbox has no currently developed emulators.
There's no shortage of ways to play old 8bit and 16bit games. There is a shortage of ways to play last generation games. When our 360s and PS3s finally give up in 5 to 10 years, there's a large number of games that simply won't be playable anymore.