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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 09:53:46 [Permalink]
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There is no reasonable evidence to assume that "religion isn't going to go away." It's disappeared to a large extent because of science. Few adults believe that they can consistently make it rain by praying. "Liberal" theists are only hanging on to threads of ideas that were created a long time ago by people who didn't know very much about the world.
Also, many people (here included) see any legitimate attempt to figure out what religion is as not only an attack on religion, but an attack on religious people. Much like the confusion resulting when some people see a criticism of Israel's actions as anti-semitic.
There is no reasonable evidence of a correlation between religion (that is, a belief in a supernatural ruler of the universe) and enjoying life. None.
There is no reasonable evidence that religion, in and of itself, causes people to do good or bad things. Many people who believe from the same books do many different things. My best guess is that each individual creates their own religion for themselves based on how they see themselves and their world, rather than vice versa.
Religion is a symptom of the idea that life, that humans, are not good enough in and of themselves. People feel they must create an infinity, or a god to give themselves and their lives worth. Talk to people who believe, and they'll tell you that. They'll tell you that there "must be something else," that there "must be a god." The only thing that makes religion stand out from any other dumb idea, is that it makes dumb ideas sacred. Now someone will say "MY MOTHER'S NOT DUMB" and once again I'll be called an asshole for attacking someone's mother.
All the rest is just arguing in circles. What you call "spirituality," separated from the supernatural, can be achieved very well without superstition. In fact, it can be done better without superstition.
We are as 'wired' for superstition as we are wired for falling down. Being susceptible to such things is not an indication that we should tell people that people who fall down are more "spiritual" than people who don't. |
I know the rent is in arrears The dog has not been fed in years It's even worse than it appears But it's alright- Jerry Garcia Robert Hunter
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 10:37:21 [Permalink]
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quote: Originally posted by Gorgo We are as 'wired' for superstition as we are wired for falling down. Being susceptible to such things is not an indication that we should tell people that people who fall down are more "spiritual" than people who don't.
Just wondering are they falling on Holy Ground or regular ground? |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 11:16:38 [Permalink]
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If you only fall on one knee, that makes it holy ground, I think. |
I know the rent is in arrears The dog has not been fed in years It's even worse than it appears But it's alright- Jerry Garcia Robert Hunter
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 13:30:58 [Permalink]
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quote: Gorgo: Religion is a symptom of the idea that life, that humans, are not good enough in and of themselves. People feel they must create an infinity, or a god to give themselves and their lives worth. Talk to people who believe, and they'll tell you that. They'll tell you that there "must be something else," that there "must be a god." The only thing that makes religion stand out from any other dumb idea, is that it makes dumb ideas sacred.
Well, thank you for clearing that up for me. All of the people who are wondering what religion is should just be directed to your post I guess. Well done!!!
Note: I don't have time to fully respond to this post right now, but I will get to it…
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 14:25:42 [Permalink]
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Yes, and I'm sure we'll all understand that which is "self-evident" after you do respond. |
I know the rent is in arrears The dog has not been fed in years It's even worse than it appears But it's alright- Jerry Garcia Robert Hunter
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 16:47:28 [Permalink]
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Ricky said: quote: In response to the first part, I'm showing you how your definition is flawed based on an example, specificially myself.
I think that not a single God exists, Dude. How the hell is that undecided?
See? I pissed you off again. heh.
But to answer your question:
Because you assign a value of true to the claim "god might exist". You do so based on the absence of evidence for a mutually exclusive proposition.
It is your reasoning that is flawed here, not my definition.
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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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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 17:10:53 [Permalink]
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quote: Originally posted by Dude
Ricky said: quote: Am I undecided, Dude?
This wasn't, until just now, a discussion of your opinion. It was a discussion of what agnosticism is.
But yes, if you assign a true value to "god might exist", then you are undecided. There is no evidence to support the claim. The proper treatment for an unevidenced claim is to dismiss it, pending the actual appearance of evidence. I can't explain it any better than I have in the past, and it just pisses you off anyway, but I'll give it one more shot anyway.
Gravity might be the result of invisible pixies pushing everything down. I have no evidence to support that claim, and there is certainly no evidence to disprove it (yet). But by your reasoning I should say that "gravity might be pixies" is true.
That isn't at all what Ricky is saying, Dude.
All he is saying is that god might exist. No one can know for certain because none of us possess absolute knowledge. He's not saying the idea that god does exist needs to be seriously considered without evidence. He's not even saying we can't reject the idea based on the lack of evidence. And he's certainly not suggesting that we must assign the claim that god exists a value of "true." All he's saying is that we can't know, which is absolutely correct. We can't know with absolute certainty.
Of course, I don't think it's possible to be absolutely certain about anything, which is why agnosticism has never struck me as a particularly meaningful position to hold. Wikipedia defines agnosticism as: "the philosophical view that the (truth) values of certain claims—particularly theological claims regarding the existence of God, gods, or deities—are unknown, inherently unknowable, or incoherent, and therefore, (some agnostics may go as far as to say) irrelevant to life."
Also, I fail to see how agnosticism could be the "default" position on god claims when it can accomodate either conclusion.
quote: Agnosticism is distinct from, but compatible with, atheism. It is also compatible with theism. This is because agnosticism is a view about knowledge concerning God, whereas theism and atheism are beliefs (or lack thereof) concerning God. For example, it is possible to believe in God but to believe that knowledge about God is not obtainable.
Agnostics may claim that it is not possible to have absolute or certain spiritual knowledge or, alternatively, that while certainty may be possible, they personally have no such knowledge. Agnosticism in both cases involves some form of skepticism towards religious statements. Some claim that there is nothing distinctive in being an agnostic because even theists do not claim to know God exists, only to believe it, and many even agree there is room for doubt; and atheists in the broader sense do not claim to know there is no God, only not to believe in one.
So I fall squarely into the atheist camp. I don't claim that absolute knowledge of god's existence is possible or that I posess it, but I also don't think absolute knowledge is a particular useful criteria when judging the truth of claims.
Like Ricky, I believe there is a non-zero possibility that god exists, and I also believe that god does not exist. The two things are not mutually exclusive.
Wikipedia simply defines atheism as "the absence of theism (the belief in one or more personal deities)."
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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 07/27/2006 17:43:17 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 17:48:50 [Permalink]
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H.H. said:
quote: All he is saying is that god might exist. No one can know for certain because none of us possess absolute knowledge. He's not saying the idea that god does exist needs to be seriously considered without evidence. He's not even saying we can't reject the idea based on the lack of evidence. And he's certainly not suggesting that we must assign the claim that god exists a value of "true." All he's saying is that we can't know, which is absolutely correct. We can't know with absolute certainty.
Bologna!
In no way does it follow, from zero evidence, that there is some possibility of the claim being true.
You cannot conclude, based on an abscence of evidence for a mutually exclusive claim, that the claim is (or might be) true. And that is exactly what Ricky is doing. Faulty logic.
fyi, the wiki entry for "agnostic" only adresses the portion of the agnostic claim that deals with epistemology. I disagree with the position that anything is ultimately unknowable. That is the same kind of reasoning that IDers use when they claim complex biological systems "must" have been designed, just because the systems are exremely complex.
The entry on T H Huxley and agnosticism is a bit better.
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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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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 18:10:21 [Permalink]
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quote: Originally posted by Dude Bologna!
In no way does it follow, from zero evidence, that there is some possibility of the claim being true.
Of course it does. With zero evidence at your disposal, Dude, what is the possibility that I own an elephant? You can't really say either way, so both possibilities exist.
quote: You cannot conclude, based on an abscence of evidence for a mutually exclusive claim, that the claim is (or might be) true. And that is exactly what Ricky is doing. Faulty logic.
Of course a claim might be true even without evidence. Is there life on other planets? We have no evidence that there is, but there might be. The only faulty logic here seems to be that you think an absence of evidence equals evidence of absence.
There are indeed reasons why we should not accept claims with no evidence as true, but it has nothing to do with logic as you've presented it. It doesn't seem as problematic to me as it does you to admit that an infinite amount of possiblities exist while also explaining why improbable possibilities should be rejected.
quote: fyi, the wiki entry for "agnostic" only adresses the portion of the agnostic claim that deals with epistemology. I disagree with the position that anything is ultimately unknowable. That is the same kind of reasoning that IDers use when they claim complex biological systems "must" have been designed, just because the systems are exremely complex.
Actually, IDers seem to claim that they can know when something is designed, so it is a claim to knowledge. They just haven't been able to actually demonstrate this claim yet.
But I'm curious why you seem to think there is nothing ultimately unknowable. Exactly when do you think humans will attain omniscience?
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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 07/27/2006 23:06:40 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 18:40:23 [Permalink]
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quote: Originally posted by Gorgo
Yes, and I'm sure we'll all understand that which is "self-evident" after you do respond.
You know what? I think I'll pass. I might change my mind but right now I just don't want to get into a debate about what religion is and how we should think about it. That's not to say that it isn't an important subject. Could be that I am too hot and tired and not angry enough at the moment to care… |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 19:28:50 [Permalink]
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Dude, I'm not pissed off. I said, "Hell," because I thought it would emphasize how insane it is for one to say that I am undecided since I think that no god exists. Doesn't sound too undecided to me. Maybe I missed something.
quote:
In no way does it follow, from zero evidence, that there is some possibility of the claim being true.
That is the default stance! If you know nothing at all about truth statement, then you know it has a 50% chance of it being true.
If you expect to find evidence and never do, that percentage drops. The more you expect and the less you find, the more it drops. But I maintain that it never reaches 0. That is what I mean by there being a chance that a god exists.
Dude, if you think that there is no chance a god could exist, then you think you have just proved that god does not exist. Do you agree with that statement? |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
Edited by - Ricky on 07/27/2006 19:30:49 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 22:04:52 [Permalink]
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Dude, I posit that the number of sensible statements about the universe ("sensible statements" excludes constructions like "my socks are fourteen purples") that are true is a countable inifity, and the number of sensible statements about the universe that are false is also a countable infinity.
Also, I posit that some sensible statements about the universe are trivially true (for example, "the concept of 'a sock' exists").
I further posit that some sensible statements about the universe will be found to be true upon inspection (for example, "my socks are gray and white"), and also that the amount of inspection required to demonstrate the truth value of any sensible statement which isn't trivially true will vary from 'easy' ("my socks cost $5 for six pairs at the Costco closest to my home") to 'very difficult' ("my socks, and nobody else's, can affect the tides").
Given these premises, I can reasonably conclude that any randomly-created sensible statement about the universe ("my socks taste spicy and are made from Lego brand building blocks," for example) has a non-zero chance of being true.
Now, given that "God exists" is a sensible statement about the universe, can I reasonably conclude that the possibility of it being true is zero?
I'm not sure, but I think I might have just pooped out a functional SUV. |
- 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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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 23:06:03 [Permalink]
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Without evidence to support a claim, then you are just speculating.
You guys are missing my point. quote: With zero evidence at your disposal, Dude, what is the possibility that I own an elephant? You can't really say either way, so both possiblities exist.
As far as H.H. owning an elephant, there IS an evidentiary element to that claim, and I can make an educated guess based on what I know of other people. Most people don't own an elephant, so odds are that H.H. does not. This inductive reasoning, based on a general observation of the number of people I know that own elephants, lets me say that there is a high probability that H.H. doesn't own an elephant. I can always visit H.H. and make the actual observation and solidify the answer.
But so what? This has nothing to do with claims that are made with zero evidence.
quote: Of course a claim might be true even without evidence. Is there life on other planets? We have no evidence that there is, but there might be. The only faulty logic here seems to be that you think an absence of evidence equals evidence of absence.
Nonsense. There IS evidence that leads to the tentative conclusion that there is life on other planets. Again, you are missing the point about unevidenced claims.
I am talking about the approach to evaluating claims, not the value of any given claim itself. When you are dealing with claims that involve zero evidence, and you assign them a value of true, or false, you are outside the bounds of logic and into unsupported speculation.
There is a significant, deeply significant, difference between saying that "god might exist" has a value of true, and saying that the claim has zero evidence and therefore cannot currently be evaluated.
The three claims (god exists, god might exist, god does not exist) are entirely without supporting evidence. You cannot assign a value of true, or false, to any of them. You cannot logically conclude that the middle claim has a value of true on the grounds that the other two cannot be evaluated. The only thing you can say about them is that the truth value is unknown, which renders the claim itself meaning-free until some evidence shows up.
Ricky said: quote: That is the default stance! If you know nothing at all about truth statement, then you know it has a 50% chance of it being true.
Not sure where you are getting that from, but no. If you do not have adequate evidence to evaluate the claim, then you simply do not have adequate evidence. You cannot assign any probability of something being true or false without some evidence.
It is a ridiculous statement to say that in the absence of evidence that all things share equal probability. The probability of a claim, in the absence of evidence, is unknown.
quote: Dude, if you think that there is no chance a god could exist, then you think you have just proved that god does not exist. Do you agree with that statement?
... Apparently I am not nearly articulate enough to explain this concept.
The claim "god exists" is the same to me as the claim "invisible pixies pushing everything down are what causes gravity" or "ghosts exist" or "the IPU is in my living room". Same for "god might exist". They are all unevidenced claims.
The claim "god does not exist" is, IMO, an improperly stated claim. It leads to a logical dead end on its own, the whole thing about proving a negative and all that. It needs to be restated as something that would be mutually exclusive of the claim "god exists". (perhaps something like "god cannot exist") Then, if you could prove that claim, you could conclude that god didn't exist.
I don't know how to say it any better or more clearly.
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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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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2006 : 23:13:26 [Permalink]
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Dave_W said:
quote: Now, given that "God exists" is a sensible statement about the universe, can I reasonably conclude that the possibility of it being true is zero?
Please demonstrate how this is a "sensible statement" about the universe.
(edited to add:) I would not disagree with the idea that "the concept of 'god exists'" is a sensible statement about the universe.
quote: I'm not sure, but I think I might have just pooped out a functional SUV.
If you did, can I be your agent? I'll work cheap, say 10%.
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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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Edited by - Dude on 07/27/2006 23:18:10 |
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