Actually, "Dawkins" argument (which by the way, is not his alone, and which I came to on my own LONG before I had even heard of Dawkins) is no such thing. How did god come to be? what benefit does adding "god" to the equation create? You say god "just is", but bacteria can not "just be"? that makes no sense. Adding God to ANY argument increases the complexity by a huge factor, reduces the likelihood by an even larger factor, and simply adds one more step to be explained. Without God we only must explain how the organism came to be (which we have mostly got figured out completely) if you add God you still have to figure out how the organism came to be (how "God" created it) and then in addition to that, you have to figure out how God came to be as well. (something that nobody has ever managed to come close to explaining, and for that matter, something that religious people insist isn't necessary, even though it would be far more relevant than figuring out any of his creations)
You believe that a sentient being, capable of manipulating the universe at will and with no physical form is simple enough to happen all on it's own? and yet every bacteria requires someone to have designed it?
I'm not even sure what to say to such an absurd statement.
In that case I would expect to see a universe of trillions upon trillions of gods, but very little in the way of other life.
Nonsense, I think about all sorts of fictional things all the time, and if I do it enough, I sometimes have to stop and remind myself that it's all make believe. It's not the thinking part that decreases religious belief (lots of religious people spend time thinking about their religion and just become more religious) it's the Analytical part. You just can't support fictitious beliefs with no backing in fact, with no proof, once you start thinking about them analytically.
This will apply to all intuitive beliefs where no underlying proof exists. Anyone who has a belief in anything non-natural or non-fact-based is less likely to believe in it if they think about it analytically. This will affect many things however religion is the most wide spread of those sorts of beliefs. Other beliefs at risk include (but are not limited to) Homeopathy, Astrology, Feng Shui, Psychic powers, Conspiracy theories, Chiropractors (for anything other than back pain), Acupuncture, Organic farming, Flying saucers, Superstition, Political speeches, and many others.
Einstein DID dismiss religion from his work (and that has been covered in numerous other posts on this story)
We don't have all the answers to many things, but adding God to the equation doesn't help in any way, it only adds yet another layer of complexity, and it tries to convince us to stop looking for the real explanation.
Yes, we often answer one question by discovering 3 more, that's progress, it's not as satisfying as finding all the answers right away, but it's a lot more accurate than inserting a made up being in to the equation and calling it a day.
Of course outside of religion, no text or tract ever claims to be "perfect" least of all anything scientific. People are not expected to have "faith" in their math textbook. They are expected to learn from it, try the exercises, and see how things really work. If the exercises don't actually work, well hopefully it will be fixed in the next edition. Religious texts on the other hand claim perfection. They discourage you from trying any of the feats claimed within, and if you try it and it doesn't work, or you find an internal inconsistency, there will be no revision. Ever. Instead you will be informed that you simply didn't understand the true meaning of the text. They have to claim perfection, for admitting imperfection would open the door to people re-evaluating the entire faith, and that would rob power from the organization behind that specific religion.
I don't think you understand the meaning of the word Analytic. If you are simply thinking, it can increase or decrease your belief in anything, depending on what you think. But if you are truly thinking analytically it is very hard to find it increasing your belief in anything without basis in facts, or without any proof.
I think it is dishonest to label religious types as "creative" very few religions encourage creativity or individuality. In fact religion is generally about conformity.
Ugg... one of THOSE religious people... the ones who tell me that because I don't believe in any religion that I'm either a) an immoral person, or b) secretly believe in a religion even though I say I don't.
How about c) I want others to treat me well, so I treat them well. I believe that for a society to function we need to treat people with a certain level of respect.
I volunteer over a thousand hours a year in my community, I stop and help strangers on the street whenever I can, I don't steal, I don't cheat, I rarely lie, I don't swear, I don't smoke, or drink, or do drugs. and yet just because I don't believe in some fictional "god" I'm a "bad person"? And trust me, I'm not a "closet believer" I was brought up in a non-religious family, and I have never throughout my life actually believed in any religion, or any god, or followed the rules of such. I behave the way I do out of respect for myself and others, not out of fear of some omnipotent being.
Never mind that "love thy neighbour" has routinely been used throughout history to mean only thy neighbour, and nobody who happens to be outside your social/religious group.
I will trust the man who knows there is no god and still behaves ethically over the one who only behaves ethically for fear he might get caught.
This has always been my biggest pet peeve about religion. In absolutely everything attributed to God, the existence of God only complicates things further. Life on earth is too complex to have come about without a designer, so God must have done it. But what of God? Any entity capable of creating the complexity of life on earth must themselves be even more complex, and therefore if life on earth required a designer, certainly God would have too. It leads to an infinite line of "creators" none of whom could exist without the prior. Of course if you discount the "God did it" argument and say that life evolved on it's own, you don't have such a problem. Sure there may be a few steps here and there that haven't been 100% solved yet, but it's much more likely that those will eventually be figured out than that anyone will come up with a way of explaining the infinite line of designers. We could also go in to the all-powerful God who is powerless to stop certain things from happening, the charitable God who murders on a whim, the God who is so insecure that he has to kill himself to appease himself because of a flaw he built in to his own creation. (If god is perfect, and he designed man, why are we supposedly inherently bad, or drawn to do bad things, does that not mean that God screwed up? (something he is theoretically incapable of doing))
People have trouble grasping vast distances or timescales, this makes it very hard to truly comprehend the age or size of the universe, or what must have come "before" or what lies "outside" (and if there is no before or outside that too is very difficult to wrap one's mind around). But that failure to grasp only shows the limitations of our own minds, adding another even more complex being to the mix does nothing to solve it.
Except that it tends to be in the "first world" where we don't have to spend all our time worrying about where our next meal will come from, or if there will be water to drink, that we have the time to actually think analytically, and where religion is the weakest. In third world countries, where they often are too busy merely surviving, often don't have the luxury of spending time contemplating things, and religion and superstition are at their strongest.
People in general are lazy and seem to avoid analytical thought, but if you want to compare "first world" to "third world" countries, I think you will find more analytical thought in the former than the later.
Worse than that, even in quotes google will still sometimes guess at what you want, or ignore terms. so the only real way to search now is +"to" +"use" +"a" +"plus" +"sign" +"and" +"quotes" +"around" +"every" +"term"
ok, how about we study our physiology instead? Our teeth show that we have evolved to eat both meat and vegetables, our eyes are forward facing for depth perception as used by carnivores for hunting, as opposed to side facing for wide field of vision as used by herbivores. And most telling is that our body is incapable of surviving in most parts of the planet with only locally grown plants. Being a healthy vegan wasn't even possible until very recently, and requires a lot of work, and for most of the world, importing food. Omnivorous diets on the other hand can be done with local food almost anywhere on the planet, and without even thinking about what you eat.
You'll notice that nowhere did he say we were carnivores, or should eat a carnivorous diet. He specifically used the term omnivorous. Humans are Omnivores, this is easily shown by studying our teeth, our eyes, the way we digest food, and the nutrients we need. Now with a lot of work, and only very recently from a historical stand point, we can drop part of the diet we have evolved to eat and still survive. That doesn't mean that we were "supposed" to be vegetarian/vegan, it just means that it is possible to be so without adverse health consequences if you are very careful and able to import the appropriate foods.
But you have no requirement that they actually do prove it? the allegation is sufficient for you? you're ok with the mere allegation of a crime being enough to ruin someone's entire life?
Due process exists for a reason. If you don't care about it in one specific case, then you are willing to dismiss it in ALL cases, including ones you might find yourself in in the future.
The catch with the money laundering charge is that it hinges on the copyright infringement charge. Because if he's not guilty on the cpoyright infringement then the money he earned was earned legally, and hence the money laundering charge falls apart. so really if you can't prove the one, nothing else matters.
against who though? the media industry will just point to law enforcment, saying they had no control over it, all they did was tip off law enforcement to the activity, any "mistake" in due process would be law enforcment's problem, similarly law enforcment will find some low level middle management type and throw them under the bus. They'll get some time off (with pay) and everything will go back to normal.
why shouldnh't he sleep at the controls? I think TFA did a pretty good job of illustrating that one! people aren't safe when they first wake up, or while they are sleepijng, and if they are within reach of controls that can cause some pretty big problems even if the other pilot is "in charge" There needs to be another way, either to completely lock out his controls so he can't make any changese can't do anything until he wakes up and turns the station back on, or to physically get away from them. The ideal solution would be a bunk of some form (I've flown on aircraft with a bunk or 2 at the back of the cockpit for this purpose (think Canadian Forces Hercules Transport) and while it costs the airline a bit more, it would still be cheaper than having to have an extra pilot on board and rotating out(with all the extra infrastructure that entails))
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Actually, "Dawkins" argument (which by the way, is not his alone, and which I came to on my own LONG before I had even heard of Dawkins) is no such thing. How did god come to be? what benefit does adding "god" to the equation create?
You say god "just is", but bacteria can not "just be"? that makes no sense. Adding God to ANY argument increases the complexity by a huge factor, reduces the likelihood by an even larger factor, and simply adds one more step to be explained.
Without God we only must explain how the organism came to be (which we have mostly got figured out completely) if you add God you still have to figure out how the organism came to be (how "God" created it) and then in addition to that, you have to figure out how God came to be as well. (something that nobody has ever managed to come close to explaining, and for that matter, something that religious people insist isn't necessary, even though it would be far more relevant than figuring out any of his creations)
I would never confuse gullibility with creativity. Those who design a religion are creative, those who follow one need not be.
You believe that a sentient being, capable of manipulating the universe at will and with no physical form is simple enough to happen all on it's own? and yet every bacteria requires someone to have designed it?
I'm not even sure what to say to such an absurd statement.
In that case I would expect to see a universe of trillions upon trillions of gods, but very little in the way of other life.
and yet:
http://pocketcultures.com/topicsoftheworld/files/2009/06/map-importance-of-religion-by-country.png
shows that the countries where the population in general is more educated are less religious than the countries with less overall education.
Nonsense, I think about all sorts of fictional things all the time, and if I do it enough, I sometimes have to stop and remind myself that it's all make believe. It's not the thinking part that decreases religious belief (lots of religious people spend time thinking about their religion and just become more religious) it's the Analytical part. You just can't support fictitious beliefs with no backing in fact, with no proof, once you start thinking about them analytically.
This will apply to all intuitive beliefs where no underlying proof exists. Anyone who has a belief in anything non-natural or non-fact-based is less likely to believe in it if they think about it analytically. This will affect many things however religion is the most wide spread of those sorts of beliefs. Other beliefs at risk include (but are not limited to) Homeopathy, Astrology, Feng Shui, Psychic powers, Conspiracy theories, Chiropractors (for anything other than back pain), Acupuncture, Organic farming, Flying saucers, Superstition, Political speeches, and many others.
Don't get bogged down by one subject and miss out on the important precepts it has.
still waiting for even one of those "important precepts"...
Einstein DID dismiss religion from his work (and that has been covered in numerous other posts on this story)
We don't have all the answers to many things, but adding God to the equation doesn't help in any way, it only adds yet another layer of complexity, and it tries to convince us to stop looking for the real explanation.
Yes, we often answer one question by discovering 3 more, that's progress, it's not as satisfying as finding all the answers right away, but it's a lot more accurate than inserting a made up being in to the equation and calling it a day.
Of course outside of religion, no text or tract ever claims to be "perfect" least of all anything scientific. People are not expected to have "faith" in their math textbook. They are expected to learn from it, try the exercises, and see how things really work. If the exercises don't actually work, well hopefully it will be fixed in the next edition.
Religious texts on the other hand claim perfection. They discourage you from trying any of the feats claimed within, and if you try it and it doesn't work, or you find an internal inconsistency, there will be no revision. Ever. Instead you will be informed that you simply didn't understand the true meaning of the text. They have to claim perfection, for admitting imperfection would open the door to people re-evaluating the entire faith, and that would rob power from the organization behind that specific religion.
I don't think you understand the meaning of the word Analytic.
If you are simply thinking, it can increase or decrease your belief in anything, depending on what you think. But if you are truly thinking analytically it is very hard to find it increasing your belief in anything without basis in facts, or without any proof.
I think it is dishonest to label religious types as "creative" very few religions encourage creativity or individuality. In fact religion is generally about conformity.
Ugg... one of THOSE religious people... the ones who tell me that because I don't believe in any religion that I'm either a) an immoral person, or b) secretly believe in a religion even though I say I don't.
How about c) I want others to treat me well, so I treat them well. I believe that for a society to function we need to treat people with a certain level of respect.
I volunteer over a thousand hours a year in my community, I stop and help strangers on the street whenever I can, I don't steal, I don't cheat, I rarely lie, I don't swear, I don't smoke, or drink, or do drugs. and yet just because I don't believe in some fictional "god" I'm a "bad person"? And trust me, I'm not a "closet believer" I was brought up in a non-religious family, and I have never throughout my life actually believed in any religion, or any god, or followed the rules of such. I behave the way I do out of respect for myself and others, not out of fear of some omnipotent being.
Never mind that "love thy neighbour" has routinely been used throughout history to mean only thy neighbour, and nobody who happens to be outside your social/religious group.
I will trust the man who knows there is no god and still behaves ethically over the one who only behaves ethically for fear he might get caught.
Because the millions that have died in religious wars are much less dead...
This has always been my biggest pet peeve about religion. In absolutely everything attributed to God, the existence of God only complicates things further.
Life on earth is too complex to have come about without a designer, so God must have done it. But what of God? Any entity capable of creating the complexity of life on earth must themselves be even more complex, and therefore if life on earth required a designer, certainly God would have too. It leads to an infinite line of "creators" none of whom could exist without the prior. Of course if you discount the "God did it" argument and say that life evolved on it's own, you don't have such a problem. Sure there may be a few steps here and there that haven't been 100% solved yet, but it's much more likely that those will eventually be figured out than that anyone will come up with a way of explaining the infinite line of designers. We could also go in to the all-powerful God who is powerless to stop certain things from happening, the charitable God who murders on a whim, the God who is so insecure that he has to kill himself to appease himself because of a flaw he built in to his own creation. (If god is perfect, and he designed man, why are we supposedly inherently bad, or drawn to do bad things, does that not mean that God screwed up? (something he is theoretically incapable of doing))
People have trouble grasping vast distances or timescales, this makes it very hard to truly comprehend the age or size of the universe, or what must have come "before" or what lies "outside" (and if there is no before or outside that too is very difficult to wrap one's mind around). But that failure to grasp only shows the limitations of our own minds, adding another even more complex being to the mix does nothing to solve it.
Except that it tends to be in the "first world" where we don't have to spend all our time worrying about where our next meal will come from, or if there will be water to drink, that we have the time to actually think analytically, and where religion is the weakest. In third world countries, where they often are too busy merely surviving, often don't have the luxury of spending time contemplating things, and religion and superstition are at their strongest.
People in general are lazy and seem to avoid analytical thought, but if you want to compare "first world" to "third world" countries, I think you will find more analytical thought in the former than the later.
Worse than that, even in quotes google will still sometimes guess at what you want, or ignore terms. so the only real way to search now is
+"to" +"use" +"a" +"plus" +"sign" +"and" +"quotes" +"around" +"every" +"term"
"but" "I" "hate" "having" "to" "put" "quotes" "around" "every" "word" "when" "google" "used" "to" "work" "just" "fine" "without" "them"
ok, how about we study our physiology instead? Our teeth show that we have evolved to eat both meat and vegetables, our eyes are forward facing for depth perception as used by carnivores for hunting, as opposed to side facing for wide field of vision as used by herbivores. And most telling is that our body is incapable of surviving in most parts of the planet with only locally grown plants. Being a healthy vegan wasn't even possible until very recently, and requires a lot of work, and for most of the world, importing food. Omnivorous diets on the other hand can be done with local food almost anywhere on the planet, and without even thinking about what you eat.
You'll notice that nowhere did he say we were carnivores, or should eat a carnivorous diet. He specifically used the term omnivorous.
Humans are Omnivores, this is easily shown by studying our teeth, our eyes, the way we digest food, and the nutrients we need. Now with a lot of work, and only very recently from a historical stand point, we can drop part of the diet we have evolved to eat and still survive. That doesn't mean that we were "supposed" to be vegetarian/vegan, it just means that it is possible to be so without adverse health consequences if you are very careful and able to import the appropriate foods.
But you have no requirement that they actually do prove it? the allegation is sufficient for you? you're ok with the mere allegation of a crime being enough to ruin someone's entire life?
Due process exists for a reason. If you don't care about it in one specific case, then you are willing to dismiss it in ALL cases, including ones you might find yourself in in the future.
But this is part of the point. They never did exist as an operating entity in the US in the first place.
The catch with the money laundering charge is that it hinges on the copyright infringement charge. Because if he's not guilty on the cpoyright infringement then the money he earned was earned legally, and hence the money laundering charge falls apart. so really if you can't prove the one, nothing else matters.
I think you're confusing libertarian and anarchist. (common misconception)
against who though? the media industry will just point to law enforcment, saying they had no control over it, all they did was tip off law enforcement to the activity, any "mistake" in due process would be law enforcment's problem, similarly law enforcment will find some low level middle management type and throw them under the bus. They'll get some time off (with pay) and everything will go back to normal.
why shouldnh't he sleep at the controls? I think TFA did a pretty good job of illustrating that one! people aren't safe when they first wake up, or while they are sleepijng, and if they are within reach of controls that can cause some pretty big problems even if the other pilot is "in charge" There needs to be another way, either to completely lock out his controls so he can't make any changese can't do anything until he wakes up and turns the station back on, or to physically get away from them. The ideal solution would be a bunk of some form (I've flown on aircraft with a bunk or 2 at the back of the cockpit for this purpose (think Canadian Forces Hercules Transport) and while it costs the airline a bit more, it would still be cheaper than having to have an extra pilot on board and rotating out(with all the extra infrastructure that entails))