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jimrobb
New Member
38 Posts |
 Posted - 02/13/2005 : 15:28:37 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Wendy
Don't you think perhaps that's merely because you've been fortunate so far?
I have been fortunate overall, especially compared to many in undeveloped countries. However, you're wrong to assume I have a sunny outlook due to sunny life experiences. I'm moody by nature, and I've had some shocking setbacks and heartbreaks.
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptiqal
Instead, go to the original research, not the NYT's reporter's version of it.
Scored a point, there! I'm sorry to have made anything of a secondary source--against the spirit of this forum. I've just begun looking into the adapted-by-religion argument. I'll let you know if I find anything hard. But looking at the common-sense view, I would point to populations, not individuals. Populations that, collectively, follow the Ten Commandments/Golden Rule approach to life seem to me to be more likely to do better over the long haul. But I'm just looking into it, as I've said. |
Jim Robb  |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 16:33:43 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by jimrobb
Populations that, collectively, follow the Ten Commandments/Golden Rule approach to life seem to me to be more likely to do better over the long haul.
Define "do better." Besides which, if you think that the Golden Rule was original to Christianity, you've got a lot more research to do. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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woolytoad
Skeptic Friend
313 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 16:59:07 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
Well it certainly is for those who lose someone. Gee, your kids are all dead, oh well.
I never said it was nice. But this is how the world works. Deluding yourself into thinking that they went to a "better place" or that dying is a mistake of creation is not useful.
quote:
It is not possible to falsify God(s), therefore, the possibility, however small, exists.
Incorrect. We can falsify some gods. If I claim there is a God of Lost Socks who prevents socks from ever being lost, we know this is false. I have lost a sock or two before. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 18:59:07 [Permalink]
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quote:
Incorrect. We can falsify some gods. If I claim there is a God of Lost Socks who prevents socks from ever being lost, we know this is false. I have lost a sock or two before.
Invalid argument. If I were a believer in the Great & Blessed Sock Deity, I would say that you have obviously sinned and the missing hosery is your punishment on earth. Repent at once!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 22:57:46 [Permalink]
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The question is not whether a belief in god help someone feel better, or live a righteous life, or feel better about themselves, or better deal the death of a loved one, or whether a belief in god leads to a happier life.
It might well be all of those things. (I'm not conceding that, I'm saying perhaps.) But if god doesn't exist, who gives a shit whether the belief he does works wonders? Maybe you are one of those people who thinks results are all that matter. I'm not. Truth matters to me. Real truth. Not whether or not some bullshit we can't disprove gives a few people a rosy outlook on life. I only say that so we're on the same page. You can understand right off then that only facts, not anecdotes of personal triumph, interest me.
BTW, I noticed you have avoided the hard questions I've raised.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 02/13/2005 22:58:26 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 23:41:59 [Permalink]
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quote:
You are trying to pick nits where none exist.
I dunno filthy. I think there is, atleast from my perspective, a very large nit to pick.
Claims made without evidence (of the repeatable/verifiable kind) can be freely dismissed. To me they hold no value.
Claims that cannot be falsified fall under this, as there is no way to test their validity.
To me, this does not indicate that there is some possibility of the claim being true. It indicates flawed thinking.
Maybe I'm missing something here?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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jimrobb
New Member
38 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2005 : 01:38:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by H. Humbert
Truth matters to me. Real truth. Not whether or not some bullshit we can't disprove gives a few people a rosy outlook on life.
Quite right, H., I agree with you. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then my religion is useless. Nothing else need be disproved. I'm done, finished, out of here. If Jesus did not rise, then I am the silliest goose in the barnyard, pitiful, an object lesson, to be scorned. Truth matters, It's all that matters. Literal, objective truth. The Christian apostle Paul underlines this point three times in this emphatic passage from one of his letters, "If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot." [Read for yourself] |
Jim Robb |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2005 : 02:06:32 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by jimrobb
... Populations that, collectively, follow the Ten Commandments/Golden Rule approach to life seem to me to be more likely to do better over the long haul. But I'm just looking into it, as I've said.
Which populations would that be? |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2005 : 02:12:43 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by woolytoad
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
Well it certainly is for those who lose someone. Gee, your kids are all dead, oh well.
I never said it was nice. But this is how the world works. Deluding yourself into thinking that they went to a "better place" or that dying is a mistake of creation is not useful.
I read your comment, "What do you mean little horror", to say it wasn't a horror. Now I don't understand this response at all so I must be misinterpreting something or everything.
My comments are from an atheist view of the world so I certainly don't think everyone's waiting in heaven. |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2005 : 02:36:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by jimrobb
How about Flavius Josephus, the great first century non-Christian Jewish historian? Pretty good, isn't he? He discusses Jesus, John the Baptist, Pontius Pilate, and the controversies surrounding each.
There is a problem with Josephus however.
Flavius Josephus "mentions" Jesus twice, (once in Antiquities and once in Wars of the Jews) but these passages have at least been tampered with. Some say they are complete forgeries added by a christian forger (Eusebius?).
We have had several long threads on this subject, Did Jesus really exist?(1-5).
From the Josephus thread you can find a good link to this article, by Peter Kirby which analyzes the two passages. |
"Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly"
-- Terry Jones |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2005 : 02:47:42 [Permalink]
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Pretty much what Ricky said.
There are many people out there, believers mainly but not exclusivly, who would imply posession of such vast knowledge and experience of the Cosmos that the phrase, "I don't know." needs never pass their lips.
"I don't know." That is the most profound and important phrase in human discourse because it is the genesis of the effort to find out. It is the exact opposit of, "God did it." because the latter phrase implies a knowledge beyond empirical experience and even reason.
Consider the so-called 'Big Bang' explanation for the formation of the universe. Most if not all existing evidence is in favor of it, but, unlike the ToE, it has yet to be demonstrated conclusivly that it all happened that way. It is merely the best explanation thus far. And before that event? I don't know and most likely no one will ever know, as it is thought that time itself began at that point.
Now, we all know that Invisible Pink Unicorns and Sock Gods, and even the deities I myself have made up upon occasion are silliness brought forth by individuals seeking to amuse as well as argue against the existence of God(s). And they form a pretty good argument because they too, can't be falsified even though they are silliness. The question becomes, are they more or less silly than the various Gods brought forth by our more or less sapient ancestors of the ancient past and the more or less sapient believers of today?
Meaningless speculation: What if there exists a set of laws of physics that we have yet to comprehend and might never understand? And that these were the laws that governed the formation of the universe, 'Big Bang' or otherwise? Could these not be called 'God' for lack of better terminology? I don't know.
And as long as I don't know, I will not entirely close the door even though I am convinced by the evidence, or rather the lack of it, that no 'God' exists. To do that would make me as closed-minded as any AiG staffer or fundementalist preacher howling of salvation at a tent revival.
See what I'm sayin'? A skeptic must maintain an open mind, but "not so open that his brains fall out."
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2005 : 07:43:13 [Permalink]
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quote:
What you are basically saying is:
I can not show claim X to be true.
Therefore claim X is false.
But not being able to show it is true does not lead to it being false at all. It is a non-sequitur.
Actually, that's not what I'm saying at all.
What I'm saying is, if claim X cannot be falsified, then claim X is stated in a logically flawed manner.
(more thinking required than I can currently muster to complete my thoughts in this post. Been awake for about 25 hours, worked till almost midnight, then got called back at 3am, just as I was literally laying down to go to bed. So.... more later, after I get a couple hours sleep)
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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jimrobb
New Member
38 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 12:17:06 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Starman
There is a problem with Josephus however.
Flavius Josephus "mentions" Jesus twice, (once in Antiquities and once in Wars of the Jews) but these passages have at least been tampered with. Some say they are complete forgeries added by a christian forger (Eusebius?).
Starman, you just about wore me ought with that one! I had just slogged through much of F.J. a few months ago, and you make me review the literature again! (Just kidding, research is good,, ignorance bad.
After review, it seems to me that there is no compelling evidence disallowing either of the passages in question. Put that together with Josephus' long passage on John the Baptist, his minute discussions of Pilate, and the often overlooked point that absolutely nothing in any of his books refutes anything in the New Testament, and I still hold Flavius Josephus to be a good-to-excellent backup of the New Testament accounts. |
Jim Robb |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 15:22:13 [Permalink]
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quote:
Actually, that's not what I'm saying at all.
What I'm saying is, if claim X cannot be falsified, then claim X is stated in a logically flawed manner.
Ok. Let me see if (after a day or so to recover) I can clarify what I'm trying to say here.
I agree that abscence of evidence is not conclusive evidence of abscence.
The burden of evidence lies with the one making the claim.
Claims wich are made that cannot be falsified (read tested) represent illogical (wishfull) thinking.
Now, after some consideration, I'm not entirely convinced that it is impossible to falsify the christian god. If we examine the accounts of this gods behavior from the OT, then it should be possible to set up a test for the presence/abscence of this god. The chiristian god seemed to be provoked by certain actions of humans. Now, I realize it's probably unlikely that we can set up (deliberately) a situation that resembles some of the biblical stories that provoked the WoG (Wrath of God), but surely we can look at the world and find situation that are similair.
Take Las Vegas, for example. Prostitution, gluttony, debauchery, gambling, drugs, ect... You name it. Almost any human vice you desire, you can find in abundance, even illegal ones.
Yet, Vegas hasn't been struck down by the WoG.
Neither has Amsterdam (a city for debauching if there ever was one), nor any of the many other places around the world I can think of that qualify.
I realize this is really just more of the "abscence of evidence" thing, but an abundance of this can sometimes qualify as evidence of abscence.
And yes filthy. I totally agree that "I don't know" is a powerfull answer to many questions. Often it is the only possible honest answer.
But, to the question of god's existance, I have to think that leaving the possibility open is no more acceptable than leaving the possibility open of the absurd invisible/intangible pink unicorn in my garage.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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