Your ignorance is that you seem to be so willing to attack religion that you'll use any possible argument, however illogical and inane, to do so.
An economics professor at Penn State is charged with murdering his wife. Should we attack spending on economics because clearly economists are murderers?
Over the past couple of years there have been numerous cases of teachers sleeping with their underage students. This isn't exactly a new trend, I remember when I was in school there were concerns and in one case legal action taken against teachers behaving in this way. Should we attack education for being evil and rant about cutting spending?
You betray your real motives with statements like The morons in Kansas who elected the religious freaks Here's a story about a nuclear physicist who likes child porn. Cut off funding to nuclear physics?
The Catholic church's sex scandal was a complete mistake on their part. They made a huge error in judgment that damaged lives and cost the church a lot of money that could have been spent on helping the poor and in need.
I don't support teaching intelligent design as a complete and unified scientific theory in public schools. I do however support teaching students about the inherent limitations of science, the specific limitations of evolutionary theory (it doesn't attempt to speak about the actual origins of life), and any serious challenges to the theory.
You'd agree with me on that though right, that science is limited in it's capability to know, that evolution doesn't explain the origins or the universe or life, and that there are still many challenges and questions that scientists are trying to figure out with the theory? We should be honest with students and communicate that?
MS isn't claiming that the OS will be unstable. They're saying poorly written apps will crash and the users will blame that on Vista, not the poorly written apps.
It's a legit concern... although I'd say that's part of rolling out any new piece of software that other software is dependent on, so they just need to deal with it.
Yeah that's a cute bumper sticker. I stated in my post and in more detail in later posts atheism isn't simply the non-adoption of another philosophical viewpoint. It is the categorical statement that only the physical world exists. There are no gods, there are no souls, there is no after life, everything was caused by natural repeatable predictable processes.
Theism is a religion in exactly the same way that acknowledging the existence of stamps is a hobby.
Religious practices are anchored in philosophical viewpoints. As I stated in my post, on top of the basic assumptions and arguments of atheism a layer of religious-like practices have formed. Organized atheism behaves like a religion.
Defining Atheism You do not understand the definition of atheism. As the wikipedia article you cited points out atheism is "the positive assertion that deities do not exist." It's not an "I don't know"... it's a "I know for sure". Saying "I believe I'm reincarnated or I believe there are Thetans, but I don't believe in Shiva" is not athiesm. Atheism denies all that is not physical.
See here for a philosophical definition of atheism and 3 unprovable presuppositions.
The term "saints" does not mean people who do miracles. These are people who are highly regarded, elevated up as examples of the belief system.
Atheists absolutely do evangelize./. is a perfect example... their are myriad of examples were atheists present and argue for their viewpoint, there are sigs here with atheist slogans... atheist may not be as formal as the Roman Catholic church (which is not surprising considering atheism reactionary history). They fight to win over hearts and minds to their point of view.
No an atheist, as the propositions state, believes that no such events can occour, ever. Miracles, gods, spirits, souls, all of that they say cannot ever actually occur (a pretty bold statement). The look at the reports and say, that cannot happen we've never seen it so it mustn't have happened, water doesn't turn into wine so anyone who claims that they turned it into wine could not have.
Your statement about people believing what they believe because their "mommy and daddy" told them is a pathetic straw man argument. I could say athiests choose to be athiests because they're picked on in school or weren't picked to be an acholite... there are many many many very intelligent people who are also Christians. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project for example.
Your defintions of natural and supernatural phenomena are incorrect and lead you to your conclusion. Christians don't just make claims about "something not sensibly describable is happening that no one, anywhere, ever, could tell is happening"... they make claims about things that happen in time and space. Pillars of fire, city walls falling down with trumpet blasts, walking on water, rising from the dead... all claims about real events. An atheists position is to deny that these events could be supernatural at all from the beginning, they MUST be explained by processes that are observable.
Another poster had a great comment... if I died and wrote you a note from the grave... an atheists position would be to deny that I wrote the note because that's not possible given our understanding of natural processes. They would, by faith in their belief that only observable testable repeatable events can occur, deny the truth because the only accept natural explanations for any given event.
Bear in mind though that you are defining what you mean by "God" by giving this description of how things would differ, so if you say for example merely "if God didn't exist, nothing would exist", you're just saying "God" is the universe.
I don't follow you're logic... "if you didn't write your post, then your post would not exist"... so I'm saying you are your post? You're going to have to clear that one up for me...
The assumption is that there are no supernatural events. An convinced atheist would see all events and natural, and if they appear to be supernatural, would simply say they just don't understand that natural drivers behind the event. They always assume natural causes of all events and automatically reject any supernatural cause by default.
Yeah, I agree. It's a complex world... if you're not constantly working with new ideas and challenging and thinking through your beliefs you're being lazy. Most people (theists, diests, agnostics, athesits, etc.) just don't think about their beliefs (both rational or otherwise).
I think the American Atheists organization is actually making a philosophically thought out statement of what atheism is. The basic jist of their clear statements is that the physical universe is it... nothing else. To not believe that and still call yourself an atheist would seem to me to be a poorly thought out position or an abuse of the term "atheist".
No we left the caves to escape simpletons like you.:)
Seriously though, I would say that most innovation is driven out of necessity even if it is artificial necessity... now several other people have responded to me and pointed out that although the direct value of this research is on par with calculating the total # of daises on the mountains (not much) the mathematics and physics used and tested in these types of exercises is quite valuable. That was of course my original question... why should we do this, and a few of the answers I got back helped me understand.
So this is where things get to be all sorts of fun... now I'm not saying that the American Athiests organization is the be all-end all of atheist thought... but that doesn't make the world view any less organized. I would also put more stock in an organization that has organized itself and clearly stated a well though out philosophical position over Joe-sixpack who doesn't want to believe there's "a God", but does want to believe in some other supernatural power. There are people who would call themselves Christians disagree with all sorts of basic tenets of the Christian faith... that of course doesn't mean that Christianity isn't an organized religion.
I'd be interested in hearing what one of these people you know actually believe... it would seem that the basic tenet of atheism is that the physical world is absolutely it... there is nothing else. To not believe that, to believe there is some supernatural stuff outside of the physical world seems like something other than atheism.
Don't make the mistake that all those who believe in God also think evolution is a lie.
I didn't.
It is also why I loathe most *organized* religions who seem to require everything they read to the literal truth and forget that the book was written by plain ol' men.
Some "organized" religions have nothing to do with the Bible... I know breathe that's scary isn't it. Also, some organized religions that would say they are Christians don't take the Bible literally.
You can choose to agree with the book, but it is best if you understand why you agree as opposed to some who just do without thought.
I agree. People should think about what they believe in great detail... not just "religous" people, but people who believe only the things they read in science books and history books and whatever other books they choose to put their trust in. You as a person need to think about how you view the world and constantly analyze that view against new information.
I believe in God. I also have a Darwin fish on the back of my car.
Sure, and some atheists would say they like the teachings of the Bible and think Jesus was a pretty great guy.
It says their smart enough to take on challenging and related problems that they can learn from and use to enhance their information business. This is a real-time application. Imagine if Google could, based on all of the data Google is collecting and indexing, provide a real time view of current trends and patterns of consumers on the web. An immediate zeitgeist presented in a way that a business can use to make sure it's selling its products at the right time to the right people. Cool stuff.
Yeah, and thank goodness someone is developing the software and systems to do stuff with all of that data today. Storage is one thing... using the data that's stored is completely different.
No human can look at that much data, and google's experience indexing the web seems only tangentially related.
Google's PHd's and big thinkers could certainly play a part here. Google is about solving problems with large chunks of constantly changing data that has patterns and creating systems to identify and use those patterns. The web is simply a way for Google to apply the model.
In another threat about the collapsed Pillars of Creation I questioned the value of that type of research... who cares if they collapsed or not. I asked... where is the value in that particular research.
This whoever provides real obvious value. I could care less about the astronomical events... I guess there is some physics and maths and stuff that can be done... but the database and algorithms and computing systems needed to process all of this data will drive innovation, particularly since it's being done by a company like Google that gets innovation. This is good science... pure science that requires real innovation to work and will return real benefits.
Slashdot Mirror
The FCC is taking on too much power. Limiting their abilities is a very good thing.
Your ignorance is that you seem to be so willing to attack religion that you'll use any possible argument, however illogical and inane, to do so.
An economics professor at Penn State is charged with murdering his wife. Should we attack spending on economics because clearly economists are murderers?
Over the past couple of years there have been numerous cases of teachers sleeping with their underage students. This isn't exactly a new trend, I remember when I was in school there were concerns and in one case legal action taken against teachers behaving in this way. Should we attack education for being evil and rant about cutting spending?
You betray your real motives with statements like The morons in Kansas who elected the religious freaks
Here's a story about a nuclear physicist who likes child porn. Cut off funding to nuclear physics?
The Catholic church's sex scandal was a complete mistake on their part. They made a huge error in judgment that damaged lives and cost the church a lot of money that could have been spent on helping the poor and in need.
I don't support teaching intelligent design as a complete and unified scientific theory in public schools. I do however support teaching students about the inherent limitations of science, the specific limitations of evolutionary theory (it doesn't attempt to speak about the actual origins of life), and any serious challenges to the theory.
You'd agree with me on that though right, that science is limited in it's capability to know, that evolution doesn't explain the origins or the universe or life, and that there are still many challenges and questions that scientists are trying to figure out with the theory? We should be honest with students and communicate that?
You're probably right. Balmer called up the Division of Blameshifting and Excuse Development.
MS isn't claiming that the OS will be unstable. They're saying poorly written apps will crash and the users will blame that on Vista, not the poorly written apps.
It's a legit concern... although I'd say that's part of rolling out any new piece of software that other software is dependent on, so they just need to deal with it.
Yeah that's a cute bumper sticker. I stated in my post and in more detail in later posts atheism isn't simply the non-adoption of another philosophical viewpoint. It is the categorical statement that only the physical world exists. There are no gods, there are no souls, there is no after life, everything was caused by natural repeatable predictable processes.
Theism is a religion in exactly the same way that acknowledging the existence of stamps is a hobby.
Religious practices are anchored in philosophical viewpoints. As I stated in my post, on top of the basic assumptions and arguments of atheism a layer of religious-like practices have formed. Organized atheism behaves like a religion.
Defining Atheism
/. is a perfect example... their are myriad of examples were atheists present and argue for their viewpoint, there are sigs here with atheist slogans... atheist may not be as formal as the Roman Catholic church (which is not surprising considering atheism reactionary history). They fight to win over hearts and minds to their point of view.
You do not understand the definition of atheism. As the wikipedia article you cited points out atheism is "the positive assertion that deities do not exist." It's not an "I don't know"... it's a "I know for sure". Saying "I believe I'm reincarnated or I believe there are Thetans, but I don't believe in Shiva" is not athiesm. Atheism denies all that is not physical.
See here for a philosophical definition of atheism and 3 unprovable presuppositions.
The term "saints" does not mean people who do miracles. These are people who are highly regarded, elevated up as examples of the belief system.
Atheists absolutely do evangelize.
Protestants don't interpret Jesus' words literally in this case, and they do so based on the text of the Bible.
No an atheist, as the propositions state, believes that no such events can occour, ever. Miracles, gods, spirits, souls, all of that they say cannot ever actually occur (a pretty bold statement). The look at the reports and say, that cannot happen we've never seen it so it mustn't have happened, water doesn't turn into wine so anyone who claims that they turned it into wine could not have.
Your statement about people believing what they believe because their "mommy and daddy" told them is a pathetic straw man argument. I could say athiests choose to be athiests because they're picked on in school or weren't picked to be an acholite... there are many many many very intelligent people who are also Christians. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project for example.
Your defintions of natural and supernatural phenomena are incorrect and lead you to your conclusion. Christians don't just make claims about "something not sensibly describable is happening that no one, anywhere, ever, could tell is happening"... they make claims about things that happen in time and space. Pillars of fire, city walls falling down with trumpet blasts, walking on water, rising from the dead... all claims about real events. An atheists position is to deny that these events could be supernatural at all from the beginning, they MUST be explained by processes that are observable.
Another poster had a great comment... if I died and wrote you a note from the grave... an atheists position would be to deny that I wrote the note because that's not possible given our understanding of natural processes. They would, by faith in their belief that only observable testable repeatable events can occur, deny the truth because the only accept natural explanations for any given event.
Bear in mind though that you are defining what you mean by "God" by giving this description of how things would differ, so if you say for example merely "if God didn't exist, nothing would exist", you're just saying "God" is the universe.
I don't follow you're logic... "if you didn't write your post, then your post would not exist"... so I'm saying you are your post? You're going to have to clear that one up for me...
I like that test... :) I'm going to have to use that.
You're right... that is the biggest question. Why does something exist instead of nothing. Great insight.
The assumption is that there are no supernatural events. An convinced atheist would see all events and natural, and if they appear to be supernatural, would simply say they just don't understand that natural drivers behind the event. They always assume natural causes of all events and automatically reject any supernatural cause by default.
Yeah, I agree. It's a complex world... if you're not constantly working with new ideas and challenging and thinking through your beliefs you're being lazy. Most people (theists, diests, agnostics, athesits, etc.) just don't think about their beliefs (both rational or otherwise).
Sure, you're free to believe anything you'd like.
Ah... another one of my ideas shot down by CPAN :)
Thanks for clarifying.
I think the American Atheists organization is actually making a philosophically thought out statement of what atheism is. The basic jist of their clear statements is that the physical universe is it... nothing else. To not believe that and still call yourself an atheist would seem to me to be a poorly thought out position or an abuse of the term "atheist".
No we left the caves to escape simpletons like you. :)
Seriously though, I would say that most innovation is driven out of necessity even if it is artificial necessity... now several other people have responded to me and pointed out that although the direct value of this research is on par with calculating the total # of daises on the mountains (not much) the mathematics and physics used and tested in these types of exercises is quite valuable. That was of course my original question... why should we do this, and a few of the answers I got back helped me understand.
What's your point?
So this is where things get to be all sorts of fun... now I'm not saying that the American Athiests organization is the be all-end all of atheist thought... but that doesn't make the world view any less organized. I would also put more stock in an organization that has organized itself and clearly stated a well though out philosophical position over Joe-sixpack who doesn't want to believe there's "a God", but does want to believe in some other supernatural power. There are people who would call themselves Christians disagree with all sorts of basic tenets of the Christian faith... that of course doesn't mean that Christianity isn't an organized religion.
I'd be interested in hearing what one of these people you know actually believe... it would seem that the basic tenet of atheism is that the physical world is absolutely it... there is nothing else. To not believe that, to believe there is some supernatural stuff outside of the physical world seems like something other than atheism.
Don't make the mistake that all those who believe in God also think evolution is a lie.
I didn't.
It is also why I loathe most *organized* religions who seem to require everything they read to the literal truth and forget that the book was written by plain ol' men.
Some "organized" religions have nothing to do with the Bible... I know breathe that's scary isn't it. Also, some organized religions that would say they are Christians don't take the Bible literally.
You can choose to agree with the book, but it is best if you understand why you agree as opposed to some who just do without thought.
I agree. People should think about what they believe in great detail... not just "religous" people, but people who believe only the things they read in science books and history books and whatever other books they choose to put their trust in. You as a person need to think about how you view the world and constantly analyze that view against new information.
I believe in God. I also have a Darwin fish on the back of my car.
Sure, and some atheists would say they like the teachings of the Bible and think Jesus was a pretty great guy.
Great answer. Thanks.
It says their smart enough to take on challenging and related problems that they can learn from and use to enhance their information business. This is a real-time application. Imagine if Google could, based on all of the data Google is collecting and indexing, provide a real time view of current trends and patterns of consumers on the web. An immediate zeitgeist presented in a way that a business can use to make sure it's selling its products at the right time to the right people. Cool stuff.
Yeah, and thank goodness someone is developing the software and systems to do stuff with all of that data today. Storage is one thing... using the data that's stored is completely different.
No human can look at that much data, and google's experience indexing the web seems only tangentially related.
Google's PHd's and big thinkers could certainly play a part here. Google is about solving problems with large chunks of constantly changing data that has patterns and creating systems to identify and use those patterns. The web is simply a way for Google to apply the model.
In another threat about the collapsed Pillars of Creation I questioned the value of that type of research... who cares if they collapsed or not. I asked... where is the value in that particular research.
This whoever provides real obvious value. I could care less about the astronomical events... I guess there is some physics and maths and stuff that can be done... but the database and algorithms and computing systems needed to process all of this data will drive innovation, particularly since it's being done by a company like Google that gets innovation. This is good science... pure science that requires real innovation to work and will return real benefits.