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General Discussion => WHATEVER => Topic started by: dude on July 09, 2011, 04:00:26 PM
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Any fellow atheists on SLAP? Are we really truly in an Atheist movement... are people jumping out of the closet like the polls say they are? Are the younger generations approaching religion from a more critical point of view? Any veteran atheists on here? Let's here it!
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I'm pretty sure everyone on Slap is an atheist, or agnostic.
I'm curious of these polls you speak of?
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Nope, not an Atheist.
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The Darkness - I Believe In A Thing Called Love (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRYNYb30nxU#)
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Most people are agnostic I think, but they pick a religion that relates to them due to social pressures and hope that 'god' isn't down with a different one.
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Adam Carolla on Atheism (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQMQxJKKjcU#)
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Religion is stupid. Religious people pick and choose an justify their own beliefs using selectively read passages from their holy book. Anybody who needs extrinsic rewards to do good deeds or to treat their fellow man with humanity is simply a bad person.
I like how people say shit like the gods of mount olympus or the egyptian gods are obviously fake, but only a fool who hasn't read the bible closely enough doesn't believe in the new magical deities.
Atheists do need to come out of the closet so this bullshit religious oppression and people governing using a book that claims the world is flat and the sun goes around it as their source of truth.
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
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Some call us a doomsday cult, but I like to consider us a gathering of friends.
Hail Cthulhu
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/Cthulhu_and_R%27lyeh.jpg/220px-Cthulhu_and_R%27lyeh.jpg)
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to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god
Wrong. Atheists positively claim certainty that there is no god, that they do know, and he definitely doesn't exist.
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Agnostic. I keep it a secret from my family, besides my parents, because they are traditional Catholics. A big argument would occur if the rest of my family knew. But I hardly see them so it's not big deal imo. So I really don't know if there is or is not a higher being(s). It would be cool to have an after life, I would like to explore space as a ghost or some shit.
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
Wrong. Ever heard of agnostic atheism and agnostic theism?
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I always found it funny that an atheist and a theist are opposites. Makes for some fun when trolling religious morons, but maybe that's just cuz I'm an asshole.
Also, geoff you dumb.
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Agnostic. Ever heard of Secular Humanism? Shit's kinda cool. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism)
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Bertrand Russell on God (1959) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aPOMUTr1qw#)
Bertrand Russel is a fuckin G. He was so outspoken about his atheist beliefs in a time when religion was surging through the veins of the world after WWII. Dude's a champ for sure. If he could come out during that time, all you fence sitters can come out too. I'm not American and i understand how hard it might be to come out as an atheist if you are living in an extremely religious state or city, but fuck it, be a fuckin champ and do it.
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Religion is stupid. Religious people pick and choose an justify their own beliefs using selectively read passages from their holy book. Anybody who needs extrinsic rewards to do good deeds or to treat their fellow man with humanity is simply a bad person.
I like how people say shit like the gods of mount olympus or the egyptian gods are obviously fake, but only a fool who hasn't read the bible closely enough doesn't believe in the new magical deities.
Atheists do need to come out of the closet so this bullshit religious oppression and people governing using a book that claims the world is flat and the sun goes around it as their source of truth.
CNN - Bible Condemns A Lot, Why Focus On Homosexuality? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRC3t7wi7qQ&feature=channel_video_title#ws)
This kid's book is rad. He is religious albeit, his book really speaks to how religious people use their faith and the bible to leverage their own prejudices towards things like sexual preference. Sort of what you were saying in the above quote. Enjoy.
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
Wrong. Ever heard of agnostic atheism and agnostic theism?
agnostic atheism is redundant, and agnostic theism is an oxymoron. i know that people try to say that they believe there is a god but they are agnostic, the problem is, they are misusing the term and distorting its meaning. when huxley coined the phrase, he was taking atheism to the next level, not watering it down. over time people have tried to rationalize their inability to take a stand by stealing the word. gnostic is the knowledge of spiritual things, "A" gnosticism means without such knowledge, in the same way that" A" theism is without the belief in theism. agnostic theists are simply theists, and they are full of shit as usual.
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to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god
wrong
not all atheists positively claim certainty that there is no god, they simply do not have a belief in one. man, you are dumb. you can be an atheist by a de facto non belief. I.e., one can not claim to know whether there is a god or not, but not believe in one, this is called negative atheism. Positive atheism is the belief that there IS NO god. an agnostic, even the kind that misuse the term, do not believe that there is a god, if they did, they could not be an agnostic, they are mutually exclusive, ergo, they are atheist.
again, with your ineptitude, it saddens me that you are involved in education.
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I always found it funny that an atheist and a theist are opposites. Makes for some fun when trolling religious morons, but maybe that's just cuz I'm an asshole.
Also, geoff you dumb.
I was going to argue with this, but seriously, youre right.
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is there a heaven for a G?
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religion is complete and utter bullshit. that is all.
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
There's a difference between "believing" and "knowing", bubba.
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I'm pretty much apathetic. That means I dont give a shit about this thread either.
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to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god
wrong
not all atheists positively claim certainty that there is no god, they simply do not have a belief in one. man, you are dumb. you can be an atheist by a de facto non belief. I.e., one can not claim to know whether there is a god or not, but not believe in one, this is called negative atheism. Positive atheism is the belief that there IS NO god. an agnostic, even the kind that misuse the term, do not believe that there is a god, if they did, they could not be an agnostic, they are mutually exclusive, ergo, they are atheist.
again, with your ineptitude, it saddens me that you are involved in education.
You are still wrong from the start. Atheists who do not positively claim [with] certainty that there is no god are defined as agnostic. People who positively claim with certainty that there is no god, and nothing less, are considered atheists. People who don't know, who know that they can't know, or just don't care are considered agnostic. People who care enough to say with certainty that there is no god outright, such as Richard Dawkins or Stephen Hawking, are atheists.
So like others and I have said before, you are a fucking idiot.
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I am usually agnostic but there are times where I am feeling extra sinister and declare myself atheist.
these are usually pretty funny, though
(http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosystem/uploads/2011/02/bread-toast.jpeg)
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to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god
wrong
not all atheists positively claim certainty that there is no god, they simply do not have a belief in one. man, you are dumb. you can be an atheist by a de facto non belief. I.e., one can not claim to know whether there is a god or not, but not believe in one, this is called negative atheism. Positive atheism is the belief that there IS NO god. an agnostic, even the kind that misuse the term, do not believe that there is a god, if they did, they could not be an agnostic, they are mutually exclusive, ergo, they are atheist.
again, with your ineptitude, it saddens me that you are involved in education.
So like others and I have said before, you are a fucking idiot.
hahaahahaha, the rad thing is, you are totally wrong. i have studied this topic extensively. you are a fucking moron.
here is a link to cambridge and stanford atheist/agnostic pages, they discuss these terms and their controversy/relevance. learn how to do some research and shut the fuck up.
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
There's a difference between "believing" and "knowing", bubba.
can you explain that difference
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
There's a difference between "believing" and "knowing", bubba.
can you explain that difference
be?lieve
[bih-leev] Show IPA
verb, -lieved, -liev?ing.
?verb (used without object)
1.
to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so:
Badda bing, badda boom.
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I am usually agnostic but there are times where I am feeling extra sinister and declare myself atheist.
If you are feeling sinister, go off and see a minister, he'll try in vain to take away the pain of being a hopeless unbeliever.
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I am usually agnostic but there are times where I am feeling extra sinister and declare myself atheist.
If you are feeling sinister, go off and see a minister, he'll try in vain to take away the pain of being a hopeless unbeliever.
Forget that, go to a mormon church, they dont have any interest in your wallet.
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^ haha, Geoff is proven wrong by unknown soldier, now lets do it one more time.
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to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god
wrong
not all atheists positively claim certainty that there is no god, they simply do not have a belief in one. man, you are dumb. you can be an atheist by a de facto non belief. I.e., one can not claim to know whether there is a god or not, but not believe in one, this is called negative atheism. Positive atheism is the belief that there IS NO god. an agnostic, even the kind that misuse the term, do not believe that there is a god, if they did, they could not be an agnostic, they are mutually exclusive, ergo, they are atheist.
again, with your ineptitude, it saddens me that you are involved in education.
So like others and I have said before, you are a fucking idiot.
hahaahahaha, the rad thing is, you are totally wrong. i have studied this topic extensively. you are a fucking moron.
here is a link to cambridge and stanford atheist/agnostic pages, they discuss these terms and their controversy/relevance. learn how to do some research and shut the fuck up.
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)
You're like Diego menendez stupid, you know that? Check out how the articles you just posted absolutely support me:
from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#1 (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#1)
"�Atheism� means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God."
Note how it says DENIAL and NEGATION, as in to say that there is none, not that one can not know.
On Agnosticism according to Huxley:
"Huxley thought that we would never be able to know about the ultimate origin and causes of the universe."
"Huxley's agnosticism seems nevertheless to go with an extreme empiricism, nearer to Mill's methods of induction than to recent discussions of the hypothetico-deductive and partly holistic aspect of testing of theories. Though we might not be able to prove the existence of God might we be able to disprove it?"
hmmmmm, sounds like EXACTLY what I said... funny.
They also point out how the term can be used in general to mean neither believing nor disbelieving in this little quote:
"it can be used in a non-theological way, as when a cosmologist might say that she is agnostic about string theory, neither believing nor disbelieving it."
That's not all, I'm just getting started- and let me tell you, putting your bitch ass back in its place is making me very happy right now. The fact that you just gave me so much to work with in calling you a complete and utter fucking idiot is further proof of how stupid you are, and is just fantastic to me.
From the other website (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm))
What is atheism? According to them:
"Taken at its most basic, atheism is simply the state of not being a theist, i.e., lacking belief in deities, although it may also be interpreted as a positive belief in the absence of deities"
Just to translate for your hillarious and pleasurably stupid mind, this means that in a literal deconstruction of the word "a" means without, and "theist" as in belief in deities. Then they make it clear that the modern interpretation is the certain (positive) belief in the lack of gods.
They then point out that most consider agnosticism/atheism/theism to be more of a scale than 3 absolute positions, but what do they claim an explicit atheist is?
"With this type, the atheist explicitly denies the existence of any gods � making a strong claim which will demand empirical support at some point. Some atheists do this and others may do this with regards to certain specific gods but not with others. Thus, a person may lack belief in one god, but deny the existence of another god. "
They then talk about the two slightly less pure forms of atheism that are considered atheism are.
They are new atheism, which they claim:
"Old Atheists are those of the Victorian school, who believed that empiricism and science effectively ended the plausibility of religion, "
Get it? They positively think that science proved religion was false.
Next on the order, anti-theists/new atheists, who, according to the article YOU provided (hahahahahahahahahahaha... idiot) have a "a '99% certainty' that there are no Gods or other supernatural beings." What's that you say? It only says usually, and this proves your point that you don't have to positively believe there are no gods to truly be an atheist? Oh, they clarify that right here:
"Most New Atheists claim to be 'technically' agnostic, and thus avoid the pitfalls 'Strong' Atheism."
Hmmm, sounds like even with a 99% certain belief there is no god, leaders of this movement still are hesitant to call themselves truly atheist.
The thing is, the stuff you say is almost kind of in there, but at points where it comes close to agreeing with you, it always has modifiers like "some might argue" or "some claim" meaning that it is not agreed upon.
What is agreed upon not only by those articles, but also by our culture at large (as the true meaning of language is its culturally agreed upon meaning), is that atheism= certain belief in no god and agnosticism means no certain belief in god, which is what I was saying in the first place. Therefore not only are you wrong, but you are a terrible reader as well.
I'd like to close with a quote from the article that I find very appropriate for our conversation:
That was awesome. Now, here is your education that you don't think I am capable of providing (which I think probably comes from being jealous and having a social and economic position which probably gets you less respect, thus creating the desire to deride me for what I do, as you feel that I can't actually be better than you despite what society may say)-
Lesson 1: Reading articles without understanding them is not the same as "doing research." Doing research means you have not only read, but also understood and processed this article to get a greater understanding of the topic you are talking about. What I see here is that you may have read the articles, but did not understand them on even a basic level.
Lesson 2: providing an article for citation without actual quotes to specifically point to is completely useless. Without applying specific ideas in the article to the thesis you are arguing all you are doing is giving me a chance to find the weakest points in the article and arguing against them. See how the unknown soldier points to the facts and clarifies how it relates to his point? You need to find quotes in the article and do that. You need to apply specific research to the claims you make, but again, your claims don't necessarily match what each article says, which really goes back to the first lesson, which is to process and ensure you understand what you are reading, rather than just looking at the words an declaring yourself an expert when you get to the last period. Now, is there stuff you can use in there to back your point? maybe, but without actually citing the quotes that support your ideas, you allow people like me to look at an article and see words which support our side rather than yours
Lesson 3: Make sure to use the right resources for your argument. It is actually antithetical to your position when the documents you vaguely point to actually rebut your point. Now, its possible that there is academia that supports every word that you say? Yes, but that's not what you supplied.
That was awesome.
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
There's a difference between "believing" and "knowing", bubba.
can you explain that difference
be?lieve
[bih-leev] Show IPA
verb, -lieved, -liev?ing.
?verb (used without object)
1.
to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so:
Badda bing, badda boom.
you didnt define what it means to know, and you didnt show a difference.
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That was fuckin hilarious
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^ haha, Geoff is proven wrong by unknown soldier, now lets do it one more time.
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to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god
wrong
not all atheists positively claim certainty that there is no god, they simply do not have a belief in one. man, you are dumb. you can be an atheist by a de facto non belief. I.e., one can not claim to know whether there is a god or not, but not believe in one, this is called negative atheism. Positive atheism is the belief that there IS NO god. an agnostic, even the kind that misuse the term, do not believe that there is a god, if they did, they could not be an agnostic, they are mutually exclusive, ergo, they are atheist.
again, with your ineptitude, it saddens me that you are involved in education.
So like others and I have said before, you are a fucking idiot.
hahaahahaha, the rad thing is, you are totally wrong. i have studied this topic extensively. you are a fucking moron.
here is a link to cambridge and stanford atheist/agnostic pages, they discuss these terms and their controversy/relevance. learn how to do some research and shut the fuck up.
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)
from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#1 (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#1)
"�Atheism� means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God."
Note how it says DENIAL and NEGATION, as in to say that there is none, not that one can not know.
On Agnosticism according to Huxley:
"Huxley thought that we would never be able to know about the ultimate origin and causes of the universe."
"Huxley's agnosticism seems nevertheless to go with an extreme empiricism, nearer to Mill's methods of induction than to recent discussions of the hypothetico-deductive and partly holistic aspect of testing of theories. Though we might not be able to prove the existence of God might we be able to disprove it?"
hmmmmm, sounds like EXACTLY what I said... funny.
They also point out how the term can be used in general to mean neither believing nor disbelieving in this little quote:
"it can be used in a non-theological way, as when a cosmologist might say that she is agnostic about string theory, neither believing nor disbelieving it."
That's not all, I'm just getting started- and let me tell you, putting your bitch ass back in its place is making me very happy right now. The fact that you just gave me so much to work with in calling you a complete and utter fucking idiot is further proof of how stupid you are, and is just fantastic to me.
From the other website (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm))
What is atheism? According to them:
"Taken at its most basic, atheism is simply the state of not being a theist, i.e., lacking belief in deities, although it may also be interpreted as a positive belief in the absence of deities"
Just to translate for your hillarious and pleasurably stupid mind, this means that in a literal deconstruction of the word "a" means without, and "theist" as in belief in deities. Then they make it clear that the modern interpretation is the certain (positive) belief in the lack of gods.
They then point out that most consider agnosticism/atheism/theism to be more of a scale than 3 absolute positions, but what do they claim an explicit atheist is?
"With this type, the atheist explicitly denies the existence of any gods � making a strong claim which will demand empirical support at some point. Some atheists do this and others may do this with regards to certain specific gods but not with others. Thus, a person may lack belief in one god, but deny the existence of another god. "
They then talk about the two slightly less pure forms of atheism that are considered atheism are.
They are new atheism, which they claim:
"Old Atheists are those of the Victorian school, who believed that empiricism and science effectively ended the plausibility of religion, "
Get it? They positively think that science proved religion was false.
Next on the order, anti-theists/new atheists, who, according to the article YOU provided (hahahahahahahahahahaha... idiot) have a "a '99% certainty' that there are no Gods or other supernatural beings." What's that you say? It only says usually, and this proves your point that you don't have to positively believe there are no gods to truly be an atheist? Oh, they clarify that right here:
"Most New Atheists claim to be 'technically' agnostic, and thus avoid the pitfalls 'Strong' Atheism."
Hmmm, sounds like even with a 99% certain belief there is no god, leaders of this movement still are hesitant to call themselves truly atheist.
The thing is, the stuff you say is almost kind of in there, but at points where it comes close to agreeing with you, it always has modifiers like "some might argue" or "some claim" meaning that it is not agreed upon.
What is agreed upon not only by those articles, but also by our culture at large (as the true meaning of language is its culturally agreed upon meaning), is that atheism= certain belief in no god and agnosticism means no certain belief in god, which is what I was saying in the first place. Therefore not only are you wrong, but you are a terrible reader as well.
I'd like to close with a quote from the article that I find very appropriate for our conversation:
That was awesome. Now, here is your education that you don't think I am capable of providing (which I think probably comes from being jealous and having a social and economic position which probably gets you less respect, thus creating the desire to deride me for what I do, as you feel that I can't actually be better than you despite what society may say)-
Lesson 1: Reading articles without understanding them is not the same as "doing research." Doing research means you have not only read, but also understood and processed this article to get a greater understanding of the topic you are talking about. What I see here is that you may have read the articles, but did not understand them on even a basic level.
Lesson 2: providing an article for citation without actual quotes to specifically point to is completely useless. Without applying specific ideas in the article to the thesis you are arguing all you are doing is giving me a chance to find the weakest points in the article and arguing against them. See how the unknown soldier points to the facts and clarifies how it relates to his point? You need to find quotes in the article and do that. You need to apply specific research to the claims you make, but again, your claims don't necessarily match what each article says, which really goes back to the first lesson, which is to process and ensure you understand what you are reading, rather than just looking at the words an declaring yourself an expert when you get to the last period. Now, is there stuff you can use in there to back your point? maybe, but without actually citing the quotes that support your ideas, you allow people like me to look at an article and see words which support our side rather than yours
Lesson 3: Make sure to use the right resources for your argument. It is actually antithetical to your position when the documents you vaguely point to actually rebut your point. Now, its possible that there is academia that supports every word that you say? Yes, but that's not what you supplied.
That was awesome.
?Those who fail to believe in God because they think that the truth-value of ?God exists? is uncertain may be called agnostic negative atheists, or agnostics for short.? . --windyhead (talk) 16:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
man, you are a moron. youre very first qoute is exactly what i was arguing, then you go on and on in an attempt to dismiss it.
"Taken at its most basic, atheism is simply the state of not being a theist, i.e., lacking belief in deities" then you go on and quote something i never argued against, in fact i wrote concerning the different forms of atheism, remember, "positive atheism"
"may also be interpreted as a positive belief in the absence of deities"
you are a waste of time. try as hard as you want, i am smarter than you. i admit, the cambridge article was not the one i thought it was, but the stanford one was. the funny thing is that you believed that you won this argument before it even began. that is called hubris. im sure you have heard of it, but never applied it to yourself. those articles were simply to demonstrate the nuance of the discussion. if you cant understand the difference between a positive assertion and a passive negation, you truly are stupid. i dont care about modern cultural interpretations of philosophical terms. of course there is relevance, but the main point is a simple logical conclusion. if one does not have a belief in a deity, they are a non theist or atheist whether there is a positive element to it or not and it especially does not matter what a culture defines it as. you think you can argue your way into being right, but youre not. but mainly, you are just a dick, im sure you suck at skating, and you definitely suck at life.
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do you know nothing about the concept of debating a topic?
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Now that I think about it, Atheists are like religious hipsters.
"oh you're into God, yeah he doesn't exist and i've been into that for like, forever"
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
There's a difference between "believing" and "knowing", bubba.
can you explain that difference
be?lieve
[bih-leev] Show IPA
verb, -lieved, -liev?ing.
?verb (used without object)
1.
to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so:
Badda bing, badda boom.
you didnt define what it means to know, and you didnt show a difference.
Take away what I made bold in the initial definition and there ya go.
I figured you'd have enough common sense to figure at least that much out, but I suppose I gave you too much credit. Now I'm embarrassed.
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^ haha, Geoff is proven wrong by unknown soldier, now lets do it one more time.
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to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god
wrong
not all atheists positively claim certainty that there is no god, they simply do not have a belief in one. man, you are dumb. you can be an atheist by a de facto non belief. I.e., one can not claim to know whether there is a god or not, but not believe in one, this is called negative atheism. Positive atheism is the belief that there IS NO god. an agnostic, even the kind that misuse the term, do not believe that there is a god, if they did, they could not be an agnostic, they are mutually exclusive, ergo, they are atheist.
again, with your ineptitude, it saddens me that you are involved in education.
So like others and I have said before, you are a fucking idiot.
hahaahahaha, the rad thing is, you are totally wrong. i have studied this topic extensively. you are a fucking moron.
here is a link to cambridge and stanford atheist/agnostic pages, they discuss these terms and their controversy/relevance. learn how to do some research and shut the fuck up.
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)
from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#1 (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#1)
"�Atheism� means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God."
Note how it says DENIAL and NEGATION, as in to say that there is none, not that one can not know.
On Agnosticism according to Huxley:
"Huxley thought that we would never be able to know about the ultimate origin and causes of the universe."
"Huxley's agnosticism seems nevertheless to go with an extreme empiricism, nearer to Mill's methods of induction than to recent discussions of the hypothetico-deductive and partly holistic aspect of testing of theories. Though we might not be able to prove the existence of God might we be able to disprove it?"
hmmmmm, sounds like EXACTLY what I said... funny.
They also point out how the term can be used in general to mean neither believing nor disbelieving in this little quote:
"it can be used in a non-theological way, as when a cosmologist might say that she is agnostic about string theory, neither believing nor disbelieving it."
That's not all, I'm just getting started- and let me tell you, putting your bitch ass back in its place is making me very happy right now. The fact that you just gave me so much to work with in calling you a complete and utter fucking idiot is further proof of how stupid you are, and is just fantastic to me.
From the other website (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm))
What is atheism? According to them:
"Taken at its most basic, atheism is simply the state of not being a theist, i.e., lacking belief in deities, although it may also be interpreted as a positive belief in the absence of deities"
Just to translate for your hillarious and pleasurably stupid mind, this means that in a literal deconstruction of the word "a" means without, and "theist" as in belief in deities. Then they make it clear that the modern interpretation is the certain (positive) belief in the lack of gods.
They then point out that most consider agnosticism/atheism/theism to be more of a scale than 3 absolute positions, but what do they claim an explicit atheist is?
"With this type, the atheist explicitly denies the existence of any gods � making a strong claim which will demand empirical support at some point. Some atheists do this and others may do this with regards to certain specific gods but not with others. Thus, a person may lack belief in one god, but deny the existence of another god. "
They then talk about the two slightly less pure forms of atheism that are considered atheism are.
They are new atheism, which they claim:
"Old Atheists are those of the Victorian school, who believed that empiricism and science effectively ended the plausibility of religion, "
Get it? They positively think that science proved religion was false.
Next on the order, anti-theists/new atheists, who, according to the article YOU provided (hahahahahahahahahahaha... idiot) have a "a '99% certainty' that there are no Gods or other supernatural beings." What's that you say? It only says usually, and this proves your point that you don't have to positively believe there are no gods to truly be an atheist? Oh, they clarify that right here:
"Most New Atheists claim to be 'technically' agnostic, and thus avoid the pitfalls 'Strong' Atheism."
Hmmm, sounds like even with a 99% certain belief there is no god, leaders of this movement still are hesitant to call themselves truly atheist.
The thing is, the stuff you say is almost kind of in there, but at points where it comes close to agreeing with you, it always has modifiers like "some might argue" or "some claim" meaning that it is not agreed upon.
What is agreed upon not only by those articles, but also by our culture at large (as the true meaning of language is its culturally agreed upon meaning), is that atheism= certain belief in no god and agnosticism means no certain belief in god, which is what I was saying in the first place. Therefore not only are you wrong, but you are a terrible reader as well.
I'd like to close with a quote from the article that I find very appropriate for our conversation:
That was awesome. Now, here is your education that you don't think I am capable of providing (which I think probably comes from being jealous and having a social and economic position which probably gets you less respect, thus creating the desire to deride me for what I do, as you feel that I can't actually be better than you despite what society may say)-
Lesson 1: Reading articles without understanding them is not the same as "doing research." Doing research means you have not only read, but also understood and processed this article to get a greater understanding of the topic you are talking about. What I see here is that you may have read the articles, but did not understand them on even a basic level.
Lesson 2: providing an article for citation without actual quotes to specifically point to is completely useless. Without applying specific ideas in the article to the thesis you are arguing all you are doing is giving me a chance to find the weakest points in the article and arguing against them. See how the unknown soldier points to the facts and clarifies how it relates to his point? You need to find quotes in the article and do that. You need to apply specific research to the claims you make, but again, your claims don't necessarily match what each article says, which really goes back to the first lesson, which is to process and ensure you understand what you are reading, rather than just looking at the words an declaring yourself an expert when you get to the last period. Now, is there stuff you can use in there to back your point? maybe, but without actually citing the quotes that support your ideas, you allow people like me to look at an article and see words which support our side rather than yours
Lesson 3: Make sure to use the right resources for your argument. It is actually antithetical to your position when the documents you vaguely point to actually rebut your point. Now, its possible that there is academia that supports every word that you say? Yes, but that's not what you supplied.
That was awesome.
?Those who fail to believe in God because they think that the truth-value of ?God exists? is uncertain may be called agnostic negative atheists, or agnostics for short.? . --windyhead (talk) 16:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
man, you are a moron. youre very first qoute is exactly what i was arguing, then you go on and on in an attempt to dismiss it.
"Taken at its most basic, atheism is simply the state of not being a theist, i.e., lacking belief in deities" then you go on and quote something i never argued against, in fact i wrote concerning the different forms of atheism, remember, "positive atheism"
"may also be interpreted as a positive belief in the absence of deities"
you are a waste of time. �try as hard as you want, i am smarter than you. i admit, the cambridge article was not the one i thought it was, but the stanford one was. the funny thing is that you believed that you won this argument before it even began. that is called hubris. im sure you have heard of it, but never applied it to yourself. those articles were simply to demonstrate the nuance of the discussion. if you cant understand the difference between a positive assertion and a passive negation, you truly are stupid. i dont care about modern cultural interpretations of philosophical terms. of course there is relevance, but the main point is a simple logical conclusion. if one does not have a belief in a deity, they are a non theist or atheist whether there is a positive element to it or not and it especially does not matter what a culture defines it as. you think you can argue your �way into being right, but youre not. but mainly, you are just a dick, im sure you suck at skating, and you definitely suck at life.
I'm pretty sure you thought you won the argument before it began when you posted those articles and said that you had, in fact, done research on this subject, which was cute, and you may define as Hubris. Then you provided evidence. As soon as you provided the evidence, I knew I had won, and gloried in it, because I know you really have a thing about taking me down and claiming I'm not as smart as I think I am, and you argue stupid and indefensible points in order to prove it, which always backfires.
I don't think stupid vs. smart can be determined in an internet debate, but if it can:
to know: 1. Be aware of through observation, inquiry, or information.
Its different than belief, as one is based on empiricism, and the other is not.
The first quote clearly backs my side, and I clearly explained what that quote you are talking about was saying when it says "taken at its most basic," the same way hydrophobic means fear of water at its most basic meaning, but when actually applied, it means that it repels water. The same way atheism, when applied means a positive belief in the absence of deities. If you read past my first quote (which you didn't) you can see that both sites repeatedly back my interpretation after that.
I like how you add passive and positive when those words were never descriptors in the first place on either site.
There, now me and the unkown soldier are smarter than you, based on your premise that winning an argument makes you smarter.
Based on what I have seen, I don't know who is smarter than who, but you are hillariously stupid, with absolutely nothing that you can say in this or any other thread ever changing that.
I like how you try to sum up my life based on me kicking the shit out of you in a messageboard debate. Obviously you have an inferiority thing, which is cute. It probably stems from the fact that again, you don't view yourself as doing as well as me in life and feel bitterness about it.
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HYPNO-TOAD IS A RELIGON
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Atheism is a religion and it's all bullshit.
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The philosophical argument on what constitutes an athiest has been waged by critical thinkers for many years now. It is pretty fucking ridiculous for someone (Reagan) to call an opponent to their side of the argument stupid in the assumption that there has been some type of absolute consensus amongst those in the know for years. I am tempted to believe that the connotative meaning of the word has changed over time to someone with resolute disbelief in a god figure and so has followed the denotative.
That being said, a simple etymological study of the word atheism will tell you the prefix "a" means not or without, not against. "Ant/anti" means against. It follows that an atheist is a person without religion, not only someone who rejects a god outright. This is why the term Agnostic-Atheism exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism)
"Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity, and agnostic because they do not claim to know with certainty whether any deity exists."
Agnostic Theism also exist, but to me the idea that one can believe that there is a god but not know there is a god is a completely irrational childlike view of the world. I know because that's how I saw things when I was 13. The concept of agnostic theism is that whole knowledge vs. belief thing Soldier's going on about.
And Reagan, before you call me stupid, I'll just let you know you are also calling all four of the doctorate holding philosophy teachers that I've had over the years stupid too. Every single one of them have told me something to the effect of you don't got to be agnostic to be an atheist, but you gotta be atheist to be agnostic. Just like any term in the English language, Atheism is open to interpretation.
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Atheism is a religion and it's all bullshit.
No. Just, no.
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RELIGION THREEEEEEEEEAAAAAAD!
(http://www.infectious.com/product_image/image/3124/Big_Brawl_all_art.jpg?1249421242)
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The girl I want to fuck more than anybody else in the world is mormon. Fuck.
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Re: The Flying Spaghetti Monster vs the Invisible Pink Unico (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TagemN7kkw#)
"Unlike Huxley, whose agnosticism was a militant creed directed at ?the unpardonable sin of faith? , Spencer insisted that he was not concerned to undermine religion in the name of science, but to bring about a reconciliation of the two"
"the demiourg?s is a central figure, a benevolent creator of the universe who works to make the universe as benevolent as the limitations of matter will allow;"
"They believed in a prisca theologia, the doctrine that a single, true, theology exists, which threads through all religions..."
(http://matmantra.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/aboriginal_art.jpg)
The Oldest Society on Earth: The Australian Aborigines
"Many Indigenous Australians also refer to the Creation time as "The Dreaming". The Dreamtime laid down the patterns of life for the Aboriginal people."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime)
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is there a heaven for a G?
There's no heaven for a thug nigga. That's why we go to thugs mansion.
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The philosophical argument on what constitutes an athiest has been waged by critical thinkers for many years now. It is pretty fucking ridiculous for someone (Reagan) to call an opponent to their side of the argument stupid in the assumption that there has been some type of absolute consensus amongst those in the know for years. I am tempted to believe that the connotative meaning of the word has changed over time to someone with resolute disbelief in a god figure and so has followed the denotative.
That being said, a simple etymological study of the word atheism will tell you the prefix "a" means not or without, not against. "Ant/anti" means against. It follows that an atheist is a person without religion, not only someone who rejects a god outright. This is why the term Agnostic-Atheism exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism)
"Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity, and agnostic because they do not claim to know with certainty whether any deity exists."
Agnostic Theism also exist, but to me the idea that one can believe that there is a god but not know there is a god is a completely irrational childlike view of the world. I know because that's how I saw things when I was 13. The concept of agnostic theism is that whole knowledge vs. belief thing Soldier's going on about.
And Reagan, before you call me stupid, I'll just let you know you are also calling all four of the doctorate holding philosophy teachers that I've had over the years stupid too. Every single one of them have told me something to the effect of you don't got to be agnostic to be an atheist, but you gotta be atheist to be agnostic. Just like any term in the English language, Atheism is open to interpretation.
i dont know why this is even a subject of contention. its pretty simple, but some people just like to argue nonsense, thanks for the post.
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
There's a difference between "believing" and "knowing", bubba.
can you explain that difference
be?lieve
[bih-leev] Show IPA
verb, -lieved, -liev?ing.
?verb (used without object)
1.
to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so:
Badda bing, badda boom.
you didnt define what it means to know, and you didnt show a difference.
Take away what I made bold in the initial definition and there ya go.
I figured you'd have enough common sense to figure at least that much out, but I suppose I gave you too much credit. Now I'm embarrassed.
you never defined what it is to know, only a vague definition of what it is to believe. you should be embarrassed because you think it is easy.
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The girl I want to fuck more than anybody else in the world is mormon. Fuck.
its chill bro, i lost my virginity to a mormon.
chin up!
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The girl I want to fuck more than anybody else in the world is mormon. Fuck.
its chill bro, i lost my virginity to a mormon.
chin up!
Yep, not all Mormons are like there portrayed to be.
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^ haha, Geoff is proven wrong by unknown soldier, now lets do it one more time.
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to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god
wrong
not all atheists positively claim certainty that there is no god, they simply do not have a belief in one. man, you are dumb. you can be an atheist by a de facto non belief. I.e., one can not claim to know whether there is a god or not, but not believe in one, this is called negative atheism. Positive atheism is the belief that there IS NO god. an agnostic, even the kind that misuse the term, do not believe that there is a god, if they did, they could not be an agnostic, they are mutually exclusive, ergo, they are atheist.
again, with your ineptitude, it saddens me that you are involved in education.
So like others and I have said before, you are a fucking idiot.
hahaahahaha, the rad thing is, you are totally wrong. i have studied this topic extensively. you are a fucking moron.
here is a link to cambridge and stanford atheist/agnostic pages, they discuss these terms and their controversy/relevance. learn how to do some research and shut the fuck up.
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)
from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#1 (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#1)
"�Atheism� means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God."
Note how it says DENIAL and NEGATION, as in to say that there is none, not that one can not know.
On Agnosticism according to Huxley:
"Huxley thought that we would never be able to know about the ultimate origin and causes of the universe."
"Huxley's agnosticism seems nevertheless to go with an extreme empiricism, nearer to Mill's methods of induction than to recent discussions of the hypothetico-deductive and partly holistic aspect of testing of theories. Though we might not be able to prove the existence of God might we be able to disprove it?"
hmmmmm, sounds like EXACTLY what I said... funny.
They also point out how the term can be used in general to mean neither believing nor disbelieving in this little quote:
"it can be used in a non-theological way, as when a cosmologist might say that she is agnostic about string theory, neither believing nor disbelieving it."
That's not all, I'm just getting started- and let me tell you, putting your bitch ass back in its place is making me very happy right now. The fact that you just gave me so much to work with in calling you a complete and utter fucking idiot is further proof of how stupid you are, and is just fantastic to me.
From the other website (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm (http://www.srcf.ucam.org/hmmsoc/atheism.htm))
What is atheism? According to them:
"Taken at its most basic, atheism is simply the state of not being a theist, i.e., lacking belief in deities, although it may also be interpreted as a positive belief in the absence of deities"
Just to translate for your hillarious and pleasurably stupid mind, this means that in a literal deconstruction of the word "a" means without, and "theist" as in belief in deities. Then they make it clear that the modern interpretation is the certain (positive) belief in the lack of gods.
They then point out that most consider agnosticism/atheism/theism to be more of a scale than 3 absolute positions, but what do they claim an explicit atheist is?
"With this type, the atheist explicitly denies the existence of any gods � making a strong claim which will demand empirical support at some point. Some atheists do this and others may do this with regards to certain specific gods but not with others. Thus, a person may lack belief in one god, but deny the existence of another god. "
They then talk about the two slightly less pure forms of atheism that are considered atheism are.
They are new atheism, which they claim:
"Old Atheists are those of the Victorian school, who believed that empiricism and science effectively ended the plausibility of religion, "
Get it? They positively think that science proved religion was false.
Next on the order, anti-theists/new atheists, who, according to the article YOU provided (hahahahahahahahahahaha... idiot) have a "a '99% certainty' that there are no Gods or other supernatural beings." What's that you say? It only says usually, and this proves your point that you don't have to positively believe there are no gods to truly be an atheist? Oh, they clarify that right here:
"Most New Atheists claim to be 'technically' agnostic, and thus avoid the pitfalls 'Strong' Atheism."
Hmmm, sounds like even with a 99% certain belief there is no god, leaders of this movement still are hesitant to call themselves truly atheist.
The thing is, the stuff you say is almost kind of in there, but at points where it comes close to agreeing with you, it always has modifiers like "some might argue" or "some claim" meaning that it is not agreed upon.
What is agreed upon not only by those articles, but also by our culture at large (as the true meaning of language is its culturally agreed upon meaning), is that atheism= certain belief in no god and agnosticism means no certain belief in god, which is what I was saying in the first place. Therefore not only are you wrong, but you are a terrible reader as well.
I'd like to close with a quote from the article that I find very appropriate for our conversation:
That was awesome. Now, here is your education that you don't think I am capable of providing (which I think probably comes from being jealous and having a social and economic position which probably gets you less respect, thus creating the desire to deride me for what I do, as you feel that I can't actually be better than you despite what society may say)-
Lesson 1: Reading articles without understanding them is not the same as "doing research." Doing research means you have not only read, but also understood and processed this article to get a greater understanding of the topic you are talking about. What I see here is that you may have read the articles, but did not understand them on even a basic level.
Lesson 2: providing an article for citation without actual quotes to specifically point to is completely useless. Without applying specific ideas in the article to the thesis you are arguing all you are doing is giving me a chance to find the weakest points in the article and arguing against them. See how the unknown soldier points to the facts and clarifies how it relates to his point? You need to find quotes in the article and do that. You need to apply specific research to the claims you make, but again, your claims don't necessarily match what each article says, which really goes back to the first lesson, which is to process and ensure you understand what you are reading, rather than just looking at the words an declaring yourself an expert when you get to the last period. Now, is there stuff you can use in there to back your point? maybe, but without actually citing the quotes that support your ideas, you allow people like me to look at an article and see words which support our side rather than yours
Lesson 3: Make sure to use the right resources for your argument. It is actually antithetical to your position when the documents you vaguely point to actually rebut your point. Now, its possible that there is academia that supports every word that you say? Yes, but that's not what you supplied.
That was awesome.
?Those who fail to believe in God because they think that the truth-value of ?God exists? is uncertain may be called agnostic negative atheists, or agnostics for short.? . --windyhead (talk) 16:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
man, you are a moron. youre very first qoute is exactly what i was arguing, then you go on and on in an attempt to dismiss it.
"Taken at its most basic, atheism is simply the state of not being a theist, i.e., lacking belief in deities" then you go on and quote something i never argued against, in fact i wrote concerning the different forms of atheism, remember, "positive atheism"
"may also be interpreted as a positive belief in the absence of deities"
you are a waste of time. �try as hard as you want, i am smarter than you. i admit, the cambridge article was not the one i thought it was, but the stanford one was. the funny thing is that you believed that you won this argument before it even began. that is called hubris. im sure you have heard of it, but never applied it to yourself. those articles were simply to demonstrate the nuance of the discussion. if you cant understand the difference between a positive assertion and a passive negation, you truly are stupid. i dont care about modern cultural interpretations of philosophical terms. of course there is relevance, but the main point is a simple logical conclusion. if one does not have a belief in a deity, they are a non theist or atheist whether there is a positive element to it or not and it especially does not matter what a culture defines it as. you think you can argue your �way into being right, but youre not. but mainly, you are just a dick, im sure you suck at skating, and you definitely suck at life.
I don't think stupid vs. smart can be determined in an internet debate, but if it can:
to know: 1. Be aware of through observation, inquiry, or information.
Its different than belief, as one is based on empiricism, and the other is not.
The first quote clearly backs my side, and I clearly explained what that quote you are talking about was saying when it says "taken at its most basic," the same way hydrophobic means fear of water at its most basic meaning, but when actually applied, it means that it repels water. The same way atheism, when applied means a positive belief in the absence of deities. If you read past my first quote (which you didn't) you can see that both sites repeatedly back my interpretation after that.
I like how you add passive and positive when those words were never descriptors in the first place on either site.
There, now me and the unkown soldier are smarter than you, based on your premise that winning an argument makes you smarter.
Based on what I have seen, I don't know who is smarter than who, but you are hillariously stupid, with absolutely nothing that you can say in this or any other thread ever changing that.
I like how you try to sum up my life based on me kicking the shit out of you in a messageboard debate. Obviously you have an inferiority thing, which is cute. It probably stems from the fact that again, you don't view yourself as doing as well as me in life and feel bitterness about it.
as for me thinking I had already won the argument, my first post was simply me stating a truism, not starting an arguement, you started an argument against something obviously true. if you think you "kicked the shit" out of me, you are not only dumb, you are delusional.
i base my conclusion that i am smarter than you by all the dumb shit you post. i have met a lot of people like you. i have taken many classes with people who think that because they can regurgitate some information that they are somehow intelligent, but they are incapable of valid interpretation. your conclusions often are unnuanced and not based on solid reasoning.
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hahaha i just read through this whole thread gipper is trying so hard to tear geoff a new asshole, but really, the thread was going fine until geoff had to pull some asinine comments and insults that he couldn't really back up like gipper and unknown soldier, but man, you guys are arguing over technicalities. geoff your just trying to be a douche, the way that the way is interpreted in society is large is the way that gipper presented it, you trying to argue against that while just saying hes dumb doesn't make either of you win the debate, but definitely shows you as the dumber one.
. but mainly, you are just a dick, im sure you suck at skating, and you definitely suck at life.
through all this, i forgot to even mention im agnostic, but mom was catholic who made me and my sis go to catholic school, but im over that shit now, the catholic church is a for profit corporation.
just to remind us this is slap, the one empirical insult here is you suck at skating, these personal attacks outside of the debate don't help your side.
gipper getting riled up in a thread makes this place.
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
There's a difference between "believing" and "knowing", bubba.
can you explain that difference
be?lieve
[bih-leev] Show IPA
verb, -lieved, -liev?ing.
?verb (used without object)
1.
to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so:
Badda bing, badda boom.
you didnt define what it means to know, and you didnt show a difference.
Take away what I made bold in the initial definition and there ya go.
I figured you'd have enough common sense to figure at least that much out, but I suppose I gave you too much credit. Now I'm embarrassed.
you never defined what it is to know, only a vague definition of what it is to believe. you should be embarrassed because you think it is easy.
You're right, I do think knowing the definitions of elementary words is easy. That's because I'm not fucking regular.
And besides, you're missing the point completely.
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You can only get to your point after you define the simple words:
Knowledge is justified true belief, believing/opinion is either true or false and not (or poorly) justified.
Whether we can know the existence or non-existence of God, we have to determine whether the justifications for a position provides grounds to be certain of either the truth or falsity of God’s existence.
If we can know that God exists, then we ought to be theists.
If we know that God does not exist, then we ought to be atheists.
Are there good reasons to be certain God exists?
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Knowledge is supposed to be having information, or an experience of something that is real or true. Then after having that knowledge a person in good faith should believe that their knowledge is true knowledge, right? Do we believe what our eyes can see unconditionally? Or should be believe in logic and reason? Is there such a thing as having sacred knowledge and in turn should that lead us to further believe? Scientific rationale, cause and effect, are these really the elements of understanding our purpose as humans on this rock? Should we believe in instincts? or (women's) intuition? I have knowledge of my own experiences, yet somehow that is not something that can be equally shared with others after the experience is had. Sometimes all we have are words and an understanding that we too pass though situations that are unreal. whether it's real or not, we all hope to believe in what we consider to be the truth. Some just reach farther than others.
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L33Tg33k's overall atheism definition is what I subscribe to, as well as the idea that atheism and agnosticism aren't mutually exclusive.
Atheism in and of itself is a default position that makes no absolute statements, nor does it have any creed. It's simply a lack of theistic and supernatural beliefs. A common analogy is "it's like calling bald a hair color."
Having said that, there are people who refer to themselves as "positive atheists" and become what could be compared to a religious evangelical (I think Christopher Hitchens identifies as one). I don't think it follows logic to think that way. The only time I really take issue with theists personally is when they use faith as an excuse to deny reality (as we've seen hindering science classrooms in a few states, mine included) or legislation (written by "traditional family values"/right wing protestant PACs based on their theistic beliefs over legal precedent).
Everyone is mostly atheist, unless you actively believe in every single god, goddess or other supernatural entity in history whether you've heard of them or not. A lack of belief is passive, though it can open the door to different philosophies that use it as a base or incorporate it.
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Now that I think about it, Atheists are like religious hipsters.
"oh you're into God, yeah he doesn't exist and i've been into that for like, forever"
+1
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Now that I think about it, Atheists are like religious hipsters.
"oh you're into God, yeah he doesn't exist and i've been into that for like, forever"
There are assholes of every worldview.
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Everyone is mostly atheist, unless you actively believe in every single god, goddess or other supernatural entity in history whether you've heard of them or not.
Wait, so being of a religion (say zen buddhism) means you believe in every single god goddess, etc.? That makes no sense. Being religious/theistic doesent mean you subscribe to every doctrine of every religion, does it?
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
There's a difference between "believing" and "knowing", bubba.
can you explain that difference
be?lieve
[bih-leev] Show IPA
verb, -lieved, -liev?ing.
?verb (used without object)
1.
to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so:
Badda bing, badda boom.
you didnt define what it means to know, and you didnt show a difference.
Take away what I made bold in the initial definition and there ya go.
I figured you'd have enough common sense to figure at least that much out, but I suppose I gave you too much credit. Now I'm embarrassed.
you never defined what it is to know, only a vague definition of what it is to believe. you should be embarrassed because you think it is easy.
You're right, I do think knowing the definitions of elementary words is easy. That's because I'm not fucking regular.
And besides, you're missing the point completely.
if you believe that those are elementary terms, you have a very unsophisticated way of looking at the world.
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hahaha i just read through this whole thread gipper is trying so hard to tear geoff a new asshole, but really, the thread was going fine until geoff had to pull some asinine comments and insults that he couldn't really back up like gipper and unknown soldier, but man, you guys are arguing over technicalities. geoff your just trying to be a douche, the way that the way is interpreted in society is large is the way that gipper presented it, you trying to argue against that while just saying hes dumb doesn't make either of you win the debate, but definitely shows you as the dumber one.
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. but mainly, you are just a dick, im sure you suck at skating, and you definitely suck at life.
through all this, i forgot to even mention im agnostic, but mom was catholic who made me and my sis go to catholic school, but im over that shit now, the catholic church is a for profit corporation.
just to remind us this is slap, the one empirical insult here is you suck at skating, these personal attacks outside of the debate don't help your side.
gipper getting riled up in a thread makes this place.
please dont call people stupid until you actually know how to communicate. all i did was make a point, the point was simple and concise. reagan is a knowitall that doesnt know shit so he had to try to step. this whole debate is moronic. in fact it is not a debate, it is reagan trying to prove a non sequitur. but that is his problem.
the only point i was trying to make is that if you do not believe that there is a god, you are an atheist, even if you claim that there might be one (popular use of the word agnostic). i was just trying to point out that the original use of the term agnostic meant that one does not only not believe in god, but they do not believe in gnosticism, i.e. knowledge of things spiritual, hidden, etc....
for one to dissagree with that is like disagreeing with 2+2=4.
some people are just too full of themselves to engage in a healthy discussion.
obviously i said some stupid shit because i was frustrated, but i was not trying to get into a pissing contest.
with that, i really cant stand reagan. he is an ass with an over inflated sense of self.
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Everyone is mostly atheist, unless you actively believe in every single god, goddess or other supernatural entity in history whether you've heard of them or not.
Wait, so being of a religion (say zen buddhism) means you believe in every single god goddess, etc.? That makes no sense. Being religious/theistic doesent mean you subscribe to every doctrine of every religion, does it?
no. there is no god inherent in Buddhism. being a theist simply means that you believe that there is some sort of deity, or god.
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The only god I believe in is Mike Carroll.
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One more point. To insist that atheism is to believe whole heartedly in the absence of a god is counterintuitive to the reasoning process of what made most atheist what they are in the first place because it implies knowing the unknowable which is a logical fallacy. I still call myself an atheist but I can't pretend to know there is no god, one reason being because I don't know what god is. Positive atheist take a leap of faith (albeit a relatively small leap) in positing that they know that this undefined conceptual figure does not exist, but postulate as they will, nothing will make it fact. I will continue to very much so doubt the existence of god, but let's not forget that the only thing we know is that we know nothing for certain.
I like semantical arguments as much as anyone else, but I'd rather talk about something more interesting like what constitutes a god. Is god the catalyst for all creation? Is god the multiverse we live in? Does god even need to be a sentient being unto himself? If he is, what would stop an atheist from denying it god status by dismissing it as a force of nature or just another creature at the mercy of existence itself the same as you or I? Or are all of these questions too gay for Slap?
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Knowledge is supposed to be having information, or an experience of something that is real or true. ? Then after having that knowledge a person in good faith should believe that their knowledge is true knowledge, right? Do we believe what our eyes can see unconditionally? Or should be believe in logic and reason? Is there such a thing as having sacred knowledge and in turn should that lead us to further believe? Scientific rationale, cause and effect, are these really the elements of understanding our purpose as humans on this rock? Should we believe in instincts? or (women's) intuition? I have knowledge of my own experiences, yet somehow that is not something that can be equally shared with others after the experience is had. Sometimes all we have are words and an understanding that we too pass though situations that are unreal. whether it's real or not, we all hope to believe in what we consider to be the truth. Some just reach farther than others.
Some personal experiences provide knowledge, but some its better to be skeptical about.
A lot of the methods of knowing you mention are testable - is women's intuition statistically better than guesses?
Everyday experience and logic/math reliably provide some knowledge - but we can be mistaken about some personal experiences and should be skeptical that they happened.
Exceptional/extraordinary experiences or claims(leprechauns in the garden, sacred knowledge) are probably unreliable/nonveridical, so we shouldn't trust that such claims are true/experiences happened.
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The only god I believe in is Mike Carroll.
All hail Cardiel
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One more point. To insist that atheism is to believe whole heartedly in the absence of a god is counterintuitive to the reasoning process of what made most atheist what they are in the first place because it implies knowing the unknowable which is a logical fallacy. I still call myself an atheist but I can't pretend to know there is no god, one reason being because I don't know what god is. Positive atheist take a leap of faith (albeit a relatively small leap) in positing that they know that this undefined conceptual figure does not exist, but postulate as they will, nothing will make it fact. I will continue to very much so doubt the existence of god, but let's not forget that the only thing we know is that we know nothing for certain.
I like semantical arguments as much as anyone else, but I'd rather talk about something more interesting like what constitutes a god. Is god the catalyst for all creation? Is god the multiverse we live in? Does god even need to be a sentient being unto himself? If he is, what would stop an atheist from denying it god status by dismissing it as a force of nature or just another creature at the mercy of existence itself the same as you or I? Or are all of these questions too gay for Slap?
can we be friends?
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Knowledge is supposed to be having information, or an experience of something that is real or true. ? Then after having that knowledge a person in good faith should believe that their knowledge is true knowledge, right? Do we believe what our eyes can see unconditionally? Or should be believe in logic and reason? Is there such a thing as having sacred knowledge and in turn should that lead us to further believe? Scientific rationale, cause and effect, are these really the elements of understanding our purpose as humans on this rock? Should we believe in instincts? or (women's) intuition? I have knowledge of my own experiences, yet somehow that is not something that can be equally shared with others after the experience is had. Sometimes all we have are words and an understanding that we too pass though situations that are unreal. whether it's real or not, we all hope to believe in what we consider to be the truth. Some just reach farther than others.
Some personal experiences provide knowledge, but some its better to be skeptical about.
A lot of the methods of knowing you mention are testable - is women's intuition statistically better than guesses?
Everyday experience and logic/math reliably provide some knowledge - but we can be mistaken about some personal experiences and should be skeptical that they happened.
Exceptional/extraordinary experiences or claims(leprechauns in the garden, sacred knowledge) are probably unreliable/nonveridical, so we shouldn't trust that such claims are true/experiences happened.
interesting points. knowledge is most often taken as something empirical. but as the history of ideas has shown us, empiricism = reificaction. the deification of concepts. to KNOW something is to BELIEVE something is true. to believe something rests upon our impulses and perceptions. we define our perceptions using a finite resource, our mind. the language that we use in order to understand the world that we live in is beyond limited. the very act of communicating is a negation of the substance of things. the idea that things are of a substance is logical, but removed from the substance themselves.
this leaves us with a conundrum. shall we acknowledge the void and continue to speak using objective terms, or do we communicate on a more vague, disconnected level. i personally believe it is a combination of the two. a true dialogue can only occur when the problem of interpretation is agreed on and the terms are settled. e.g., if one believes that it is possible to know not only that things ARE, but WHAT they are, they will be unable to come to a consensus concerning a matter with one who believes that at best we can describe what it APPEARS that things are.
in my opinion, certain words serve no real good, e.g., to know. the word implies more than we are capable of. The word believe is also shallow and leaves room for those who want to justify their belief in a god or anything super natural. this has been done for quite some time now and honestly gets under my skin.
so we are stuck with limited language and an impossible situation. in the end we can only be responsible for our own beliefs and this is where many are frustrated and seek a more objective language. i frustrate a lot of people because i contradict myself often. the reason is that many positions are equally tenable.
ok, im rambling. back to the atheist/agnostic question.
according to modern usage, we should all be agnostics in the sense that no one knows anything for sure. even dawkins acknowledged the possibility (marginal as it is) of the existence of a god. an atheist is not only someone who says "there IS NO god" but also one who maintains that "there might be a god, but i am not sure." now, if they say "there might be a god, but i am not sure, but i believe in one" they are a theist with reservations, not a theistic agnostic.
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The girl I want to fuck more than anybody else in the world is mormon. Fuck.
its chill bro, i lost my virginity to a mormon.
chin up!
Are you a Mormon, Skater Austin?
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Everyone is mostly atheist, unless you actively believe in every single god, goddess or other supernatural entity in history whether you've heard of them or not.
Wait, so being of a religion (say zen buddhism) means you believe in every single god goddess, etc.? That makes no sense. Being religious/theistic doesent mean you subscribe to every doctrine of every religion, does it?
no. there is no god inherent in Buddhism. being a theist simply means that you believe that there is some sort of deity, or god.
Right, but on the other hand some Buddhists texts do make a reference to Brahman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman)
I agree with you on theism, I was just confused with what Grim was trying to say, that either you're an atheist or you believe in everything that every religion has to say.
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Knowledge is supposed to be having information, or an experience of something that is real or true. ? Then after having that knowledge a person in good faith should believe that their knowledge is true knowledge, right? Do we believe what our eyes can see unconditionally? Or should be believe in logic and reason? Is there such a thing as having sacred knowledge and in turn should that lead us to further believe? Scientific rationale, cause and effect, are these really the elements of understanding our purpose as humans on this rock? Should we believe in instincts? or (women's) intuition? I have knowledge of my own experiences, yet somehow that is not something that can be equally shared with others after the experience is had. Sometimes all we have are words and an understanding that we too pass though situations that are unreal. whether it's real or not, we all hope to believe in what we consider to be the truth. Some just reach farther than others.
Some personal experiences provide knowledge, but some its better to be skeptical about.
A lot of the methods of knowing you mention are testable - is women's intuition statistically better than guesses?
Everyday experience and logic/math reliably provide some knowledge - but we can be mistaken about some personal experiences and should be skeptical that they happened.
Exceptional/extraordinary experiences or claims(leprechauns in the garden, sacred knowledge) are probably unreliable/nonveridical, so we shouldn't trust that such claims are true/experiences happened.
Ok, but leaning towards the possibility that supernatural or paranormal events do occur is on another level with submitting to the concept of a deity or divinity/ higher power.
People can experience intense hallucinations while on drugs, or they can have dreams so moving and powerful so as to alter their lives entirely. The purported evidence of lucid dreaming is crazy enough that some might deem it paranormal. Where dreams come from and whether these things are entirely psychological or not i cannot say, but it is definitely on the fringe of our understanding. I've heard people say that they do not believe in lucid dreaming. There's also out-of-body experiences. Should we label those as paranormal/supernatural occurences, some sort of extaordinary phenomon, or total imagination/hallucination derived from our subconscious mind or some other part of Freud's structural model of the psyche?
Some personal experiences provide knowledge, but some its better to be skeptical about.
A lot of the methods of knowing you mention are testable - is women's intuition statistically better than guesses?
Everyday experience and logic/math reliably provide some knowledge - but we can be mistaken about some personal experiences and should be skeptical that they happened.
Exceptional/extraordinary experiences or claims(leprechauns in the garden, sacred knowledge) are probably unreliable/nonveridical, so we shouldn't trust that such claims are true/experiences happened.
There's nothing wrong with skepticism.
People make decisions based on intuition all the time. Some of them, I'm sure, are very important ones.
There are some forms of knowledge that can be gained only from mathematics and logic. There are other forms of knowledge that can be known only from experiences and anecdotal evidence.
Would you consider dreams to be unreliable, unveridical, non-events?
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Everyone is mostly atheist, unless you actively believe in every single god, goddess or other supernatural entity in history whether you've heard of them or not.
Wait, so being of a religion (say zen buddhism) means you believe in every single god goddess, etc.? That makes no sense. Being religious/theistic doesent mean you subscribe to every doctrine of every religion, does it?
no. there is no god inherent in Buddhism. being a theist simply means that you believe that there is some sort of deity, or god.
Right, but on the other hand some Buddhists texts do make a reference to Brahman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman)
I agree with you on theism, I was just confused with what Grim was trying to say, that either you're an atheist or you believe in everything that every religion has to say.
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Knowledge is supposed to be having information, or an experience of something that is real or true. ? Then after having that knowledge a person in good faith should believe that their knowledge is true knowledge, right? Do we believe what our eyes can see unconditionally? Or should be believe in logic and reason? Is there such a thing as having sacred knowledge and in turn should that lead us to further believe? Scientific rationale, cause and effect, are these really the elements of understanding our purpose as humans on this rock? Should we believe in instincts? or (women's) intuition? I have knowledge of my own experiences, yet somehow that is not something that can be equally shared with others after the experience is had. Sometimes all we have are words and an understanding that we too pass though situations that are unreal. whether it's real or not, we all hope to believe in what we consider to be the truth. Some just reach farther than others.
Some personal experiences provide knowledge, but some its better to be skeptical about.
A lot of the methods of knowing you mention are testable - is women's intuition statistically better than guesses?
Everyday experience and logic/math reliably provide some knowledge - but we can be mistaken about some personal experiences and should be skeptical that they happened.
Exceptional/extraordinary experiences or claims(leprechauns in the garden, sacred knowledge) are probably unreliable/nonveridical, so we shouldn't trust that such claims are true/experiences happened.
Ok, but leaning towards the possibility that supernatural or paranormal events do occur is on another level than submitting to the concept of a deity or divinity/ higher power.
People can experience intense hallucinations while on drugs, or they can have dreams so moving and powerful so as to alter their lives entirely. The purported evidence of lucid dreaming is crazy enough that some might deem it paranormal. Where dreams come from and whether these things are entirely psychological or not i cannot say, but it is definitely on the fringe of our understanding. I've heard people say that they do not believe in lucid dreaming. There's also out-of-body experiences. Should we label those as paranormal/supernatural occurences, some sort of extaordinary phenomon, or total imagination/hallucination derived from our subconscious mind or some other part of Freud's structural model of the psyche?
i personally do not believe in anything "supernatural", but I do agree with your point that there are things that happen that dont seem natural, and they might very well not be. i just cant really speak to them. i would probably side more with freud i suppose. there are things that dont make sense but are still considered physical though, vis quantum physics. i suppose you could still be considered an atheist if you believed in the supernatural without a belief in a deity. never really thought about that one.
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Skater Austin's a Mormon. awesome
The Story of Mormon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFMgqYs0KIo#)
i have a semi-serious hypothetical here: to all the hardcore atheists (i was an atheist for over 10 years of my life as well,) could you still be an atheist if God revealed itself? like if you knew what God was and God came out and started high-fiving everybody, what would you guys do? would you still deny the existance of God even though you knew for certain that it exists or would you just hate God or what? because as an atheist you believe God is a fallacy because of logic, science and reason, but if God were real, then it would be illogical to deny it, right? would you form a rebellious anti-God coallition and gather up cronies just to spite God?
oh, and
Kanye West Perform's Jesus Walks & Can't Tell Me Nothing Live at Coachella Festival 2011 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06a91KoTnPs#ws)
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Everyone is mostly atheist, unless you actively believe in every single god, goddess or other supernatural entity in history whether you've heard of them or not.
Wait, so being of a religion (say zen buddhism) means you believe in every single god goddess, etc.? That makes no sense. Being religious/theistic doesent mean you subscribe to every doctrine of every religion, does it?
That's not what I said. I said people are mostly atheist. Atheism is a lack of theistic belief... now let's say you're a Christian and believe in any of the figureheads in that faith.
...do you believe in Zeus, Vishnu, Ra, Apollo, or any other named gods you've never heard of? Probably not, and me either. Outside of the single religious focus of your faith (especially if there's an entity or entities) you don't have faith in any other religious dogmas. If you weren't mostly atheist, that would mean you'd have to believe in everything.
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Ok, so you mean that by denying the other faiths in the world, most religious people are by your definition somewhat/mostly atheistic?
That's interesting but how can you be somewhat or mostly atheistic? either you have a religion or you don't. Although it would be interesting to say that truly theistic people should come to terms with all religions and see what they find.
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humans are so full of themselves with their certainties about stuff as mysterious as the universe we live in.
space is so fucking deep,how dare you pretend knowing what created it.if it ever been created,maybe it's just been here forever.
nobody exactly know what the fuck is going on.those who pretend so are just trying to sell something.
religion is a disease,a medieval prison for your mind.
there's an universal truth,the truth of rocks and elements it was there way before the all so self centered humans came around thinking they have everything figured out.fucking morons.
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Ok, so you mean that by denying the other faiths in the world, most religious people are by your definition somewhat/mostly atheistic?
I wouldn't say "denying" other faiths, it's simply a lack of having faith in anything outside your system of faith. I mean, you either have faith or you don't... not something you really deny.
That's interesting but how can you be somewhat or mostly atheistic? either you have a religion or you don't. Although it would be interesting to say that truly theistic people should come to terms with all religions and see what they find.
If you are a theist, in many if not most cases you are atheistic to other religions. Again, I'm not saying religious people are obligated to learn about every religion, I don't know where that came from. I'm just saying atheism shouldn't be a big mystery because basically everyone experiences it one way or the other... actively or passively.
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you're an idiot.
i left hte page opena nd posted this after grim instead of smokecrack. grimcity you are not an idiot smokecrack you are.
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there's an universal truth,the truth of rocks and elements it was there way before the all so self centered humans came around thinking they have everything figured out.
It is a fire that became our earth. Separate the earth from the fire and you shall adhere more to that which is subtle than that which is coarse, through care and wisdom.
- Tabula Smaragdina
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FANS OF GOD...EXPLAIN THIS:
(http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/famecrawler/2007/09/23-End/nancy_eww.jpg)
WHO WOULD INSEMINATE THE DARK PROPHET NANCY GRACE??? WHY WOULD GOD LET THAT HAPPEN??? WILL THIS BE THE ANTICHRIST YOUR BOOK FORETELLS?
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I believe in god
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I guess by L33tg33k's definition of "agnostic atheist" that is what I would be. That's the closest thing I have seen to not giving a shit. I wear dogtags over here in Afghanistan and they need a religion for the sake of burial. I tried really hard to get "N/A" on there but I did get them to put "None". I also tried to get a viking funeral pyre put into my will but I guess I can't because I guess there are some serious EPA repercussions. Bummer. I have not seen the existence of any deity, nor do I feel compelled to seek out any answers. Shit just is. Oh I think I just found my philosophy! "Shit just is."
my god (haha), i love you hate!.
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i am my own god.
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Read Francis Schaeffer's writings. His books contrast secular humanism with christianity, and he uses history to show the results of said contratsing world views. he comes to some very fascinating conclusions.
I am not an atheist.
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Skater Austin's a Mormon. awesome
The Story of Mormon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFMgqYs0KIo#)
i have a semi-serious hypothetical here: to all the hardcore atheists (i was an atheist for over 10 years of my life as well,) could you still be an atheist if God revealed itself? like if you knew what God was and God came out and started high-fiving everybody, what would you guys do? would you still deny the existance of God even though you knew for certain that it exists or would you just hate God or what? because as an atheist you believe God is a fallacy because of logic, science and reason, but if God were real, then it would be illogical to deny it, right? would you form a rebellious anti-God coallition and gather up cronies just to spite God?
oh, and
Kanye West Perform's Jesus Walks & Can't Tell Me Nothing Live at Coachella Festival 2011 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06a91KoTnPs#ws)
youre implying that atheists hate god. i for do not hate god, because i do not believe in god. if there was a god i would believe in god.
Read Francis Schaeffer's writings. His books contrast secular humanism with christianity, and he uses history to show the results of said contratsing world views. he comes to some very fascinating conclusions.
I am not an atheist.
schaeffer sought to rationalize his belief in a god just like all christian apologists. god is said to be things that we can not know. e.g., perfection, truth, infinite, etc.... Believing in such things is one thing, trying to make them sound logical is a stretch. If you believe in god, why dont you start by explain what god is instead of attributing some abstract characteristics to him. One of the reasons i dont believe in god is because i am not sure what it is i am supposed to believe in.
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Dude, when I was talking to the lawyer he was getting so psyched. He was writing shit down as I just rambled on. "I basically want to be shoved out on a pyre and torched. We don't have to have my friends shoot flaming arrows at me as much as I want that. I don't think I know any talented archers. Basically find a way to have me set on fire in a lake and then I want there to be a 3 day party."
The dude was SO psyched and a week later he called me all bummed out, "I'm sorry sir, they said that the human body is made up of some things that could cause some serious problems with the ecosystem. I am really sorry, is there anything else that could come close?"
"No, but it's ok, just torch me and donate my shit to people who need it. Can I still get the 3 day party?"
"Yes, that's not an issue."
"Ok, awesome. We're good."
and the people at the tattoo-parlor told you that it wouldnt affect your life, huh? liars.
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Hail Cthulhu
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/Cthulhu_and_R%27lyeh.jpg/220px-Cthulhu_and_R%27lyeh.jpg)
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You and the police are entitled to know, since I am going to spend the night near you, that I am both a Humanist and a Luddite. I may hold a Black Mass in the parking garage of the Best Western Hotel, if I can find a neo-conservative baby to sacrifice.
Do you know what a Humanist is? I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that functionless capacity. We Humanists try to behave well without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. We serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community.
We had a memorial services for Isaac a few years back, and at one point I said, ''Isaac is up in Heaven now.'' It was the funniest thing I could have said to a group of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ''Kurt is up in Heaven now.'' That’s my favorite joke.
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To claim knowledge about the existence of God one way or another is completely fucking asinine. Going with the more strict definition, if you're an atheist who claims to know there is no God, you're just as stupid and ignorant as the bible thumper claiming Jesus helped him get a bigger tax return this year.
I don't have any clue if there is a God or not. Science seems to be getting along very well without invoking the divine or having to resort to "God did it", but that doesn't mean there isn't something more to the world which we have not yet been able to discover through science. That being said, no human conception of God seems to me to be anywhere near adequate to explain both the facts of the world, that is scientifically verifiable facts, and deal with the more philosophical issues of life such as morality, and death.
I think agnostic is really the only reasonable stance on this issue of God. I'm quite convinced that all religions human beings have come up with are complete bullshit, but does that mean the concept it's self is false? I don't know and neither do any of you assholes, and you probably never will, so stop worrying about it and just accept that you will die one day, possibly very soon, and that there is no answer to the question of "what happens next?".
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To claim knowledge about the existence of God one way or another is completely fucking asinine. Going with the more strict definition, if you're an atheist who claims to know there is no God, you're just as stupid and ignorant as the bible thumper claiming Jesus helped him get a bigger tax return this year.
I don't have any clue if there is a God or not. Science seems to be getting along very well without invoking the divine or having to resort to "God did it", but that doesn't mean there isn't something more to the world which we have not yet been able to discover through science. That being said, no human conception of God seems to me to be anywhere near adequate to explain both the facts of the world, that is scientifically verifiable facts, and deal with the more philosophical issues of life such as morality, and death.
I think agnostic is really the only reasonable stance on this issue of God. I'm quite convinced that all religions human beings have come up with are complete bullshit, but does that mean the concept it's self is false? I don't know and neither do any of you assholes, and you probably never will, so stop worrying about it and just accept that you will die one day, possibly very soon, and that there is no answer to the question of "what happens next?".
i dont see how it is stupid to say that one believes there is no god. the bible says that god commanded the israelites to commit genocide on multiple occasions, he also said slavery was cool. i have no problem saying that as far as i can understand, there is no god who would command things like that. anything is possible, but its ok to take a stand up to a point. saying there is a god is dumb as people who believe in god can not define what that means. but if you give me a definition of a god, it is very reasonable to say that that particular definition is wrong. i do believe that it is possible that we were created by some other being, but i see no evidence for it and even if it did happen that way, i can not know. that i agree with you on.
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i dont see how it is stupid to say that one believes there is no god.
The majority of atheists (sans "positive atheists") wouldn't say they believe in no god, because belief and/or faith is something you have. "I don't believe in (insert divine entity here)" is the default. Atheism is neutral.
Kind've related to my post earlier about theists being atheists except for the god they believe in... it would be really hard on the brain to sit around trying to believe in the non existence of all the divine beings out in the world. Not having a belief is different than actively believing in the absence of something.
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geoff...
you don't have to take a stance. why assert something that you can't prove? agnosticism is saying, "i don't know" which is the correct answer when considering what can be proven or known to be true.
i lean more towards diesm and follow the basic assumption that if their is a diety that is anything like what is found in most religions then leading a moral life is worth while. fortunately, i already feel that leading a moral life is worth while and so it's not really work to take that stance.
To claim knowledge about the existence of God one way or another is completely fucking asinine. Going with the more strict definition, if you're an atheist who claims to know there is no God, you're just as stupid and ignorant as the bible thumper claiming Jesus helped him get a bigger tax return this year.
I don't have any clue if there is a God or not. Science seems to be getting along very well without invoking the divine or having to resort to "God did it", but that doesn't mean there isn't something more to the world which we have not yet been able to discover through science. That being said, no human conception of God seems to me to be anywhere near adequate to explain both the facts of the world, that is scientifically verifiable facts, and deal with the more philosophical issues of life such as morality, and death.
I think agnostic is really the only reasonable stance on this issue of God. I'm quite convinced that all religions human beings have come up with are complete bullshit, but does that mean the concept it's self is false? I don't know and neither do any of you assholes, and you probably never will, so stop worrying about it and just accept that you will die one day, possibly very soon, and that there is no answer to the question of "what happens next?".?
thank you
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I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
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geoff...
you don't have to take a stance. why assert something that you can't prove? agnosticism is saying, "i don't know" which is the correct answer when considering what can be proven or known to be true.
i lean more towards diesm and follow the basic assumption that if their is a diety that is anything like what is found in most religions then leading a moral life is worth while. fortunately, i already feel that leading a moral life is worth while and so it's not really work to take that stance.
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To claim knowledge about the existence of God one way or another is completely fucking asinine. Going with the more strict definition, if you're an atheist who claims to know there is no God, you're just as stupid and ignorant as the bible thumper claiming Jesus helped him get a bigger tax return this year.
I don't have any clue if there is a God or not. Science seems to be getting along very well without invoking the divine or having to resort to "God did it", but that doesn't mean there isn't something more to the world which we have not yet been able to discover through science. That being said, no human conception of God seems to me to be anywhere near adequate to explain both the facts of the world, that is scientifically verifiable facts, and deal with the more philosophical issues of life such as morality, and death.
I think agnostic is really the only reasonable stance on this issue of God. I'm quite convinced that all religions human beings have come up with are complete bullshit, but does that mean the concept it's self is false? I don't know and neither do any of you assholes, and you probably never will, so stop worrying about it and just accept that you will die one day, possibly very soon, and that there is no answer to the question of "what happens next?".?
thank you
as i argued before, if you give someone a definition of something, it is possible to either prove or disprove it. to say "there is no god" is non sequitur if that god is not defined. if someone defines it, e.g., they say that god is perfect, you can prove that perfection is only a subjective attribute with no quantitative qualities, therefore, that god has been disproven. in fact, you can only believe or not believe in a thing once you are given the information. if someone says, "there is a god who loves when we molest children" of course you can say that you are not sure if he exists, but in all probability, this being does not exist and it is not unreasonable to say, "i believe this being does not exist."
also, considering the concept of god most common to us is the judeo christian concept, we have some idea of what we are arguing against and a stance should be taken in my opinion as many in this country make political/ethical decisions based on this view.
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it's not proving that a single diety doesn't exist, as grim pointed out, it's proving that none exist. it's like taking a firm stance on aliens, at this point we just don't know if they exist.
I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
we could prove\disprove the teapot thing now...
it's a disanalogous over simplification to compare a teapot floating in space to a diety. no one has ever suspected the teapot exists and diety has been debated throughout the history of mankind.
your also not going to find any kind of science explaining phenomian related to space teapots: http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality (http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality)
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it's not proving that a single diety doesn't exist, as grim pointed out, it's proving that none exist. it's like taking a firm stance on aliens, at this point we just don't know if they exist.
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I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
we could prove\disprove the teapot thing now...
it's a disanalogous over simplification to compare a teapot floating in space to a diety. no one has ever suspected the teapot exists and diety has been debated throughout the history of mankind.
your also not going to find any kind of science explaining phenomian related to space teapots: http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality (http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality)
im not talking about a single deity in general, im saying that we have to have some sort of definition of what it is we are talking about. e.g., if we can define deity, we can argue whether they exist or not. the problem is that we often discuss the existence of non things, in that we are not actually talking about anything definitive.
when asked if you believe in god, we must first understand what the person is asking. i personally have no idea of what a god actually is, so i cant even discuss it. if someone says they believe in the god of the bible, i feel more than comfortable saying that i believe that that god does not exist.
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as i argued before, if you give someone a definition of something, it is possible to either prove or disprove it. to say "there is no god" is non sequitur if that god is not defined. if someone defines it, e.g., they say that god is perfect, you can prove that perfection is only a subjective attribute with no quantitative qualities, therefore, that god has been disproven. in fact, you can only believe or not believe in a thing once you are given the information. if someone says, "there is a god who loves when we molest children" of course you can say that you are not sure if he exists, but in all probability, this being does not exist and it is not unreasonable to say, "i believe this being does not exist."
I agree with the first statement in bold, but disagree with the second... in the same way it's logically impossible to prove a negative, I don't understand how a person could believe in one.
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it's not proving that a single diety doesn't exist, as grim pointed out, it's proving that none exist. it's like taking a firm stance on aliens, at this point we just don't know if they exist.
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I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
we could prove\disprove the teapot thing now...
it's a disanalogous over simplification to compare a teapot floating in space to a diety. no one has ever suspected the teapot exists and diety has been debated throughout the history of mankind.
your also not going to find any kind of science explaining phenomian related to space teapots: http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality (http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality)
im not talking about a single deity in general, im saying that we have to have some sort of definition of what it is we are talking about. e.g., if we can define deity, we can argue whether they exist or not. the problem is that we often discuss the existence of non things, in that we are not actually talking about anything definitive.
when asked if you believe in god, we must first understand what the person is asking. i personally have no idea of what a god actually is, so i cant even discuss it. if someone says they believe in the god of the bible, i feel more than comfortable saying that i believe that that god does not exist.
i don't believe in the christian interpretation of god but i damn sure wouldn't try to prove that it couldn't be true. david hume didn't even assert that god didn't exist, only that it can't be proven.
It is likely that Hume was skeptical both about religious belief (at least as demanded by the religious organisations of his time) and of the complete atheism promoted by such contemporaries as Baron d'Holbach. Russell (2008) suggests that perhaps Hume's position is best characterised by the term "irreligion". O'Connor (2001, p19) writes that Hume "did not believe in the God of standard theism. ... but he did not rule out all concepts of deity". Also, "ambiguity suited his purposes, and this creates difficulty in definitively pinning down his final position on religion".
pretty sure no one in this thread is going to one up hume.
but i would assert that the bible and christianity seems comically unlikely to be the correct answer to the diety question. but i'd assert that about all religions that i've been exposed to. they all seem very silly and are extremely hard to believe. but at the same time it's hard to deny that religion has always been a part of mankind and even harder to imagine what life would be like if no one believed. would it really be better or would we all just be a bunch of assholes (ala southpark "go god go").
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it's not proving that a single diety doesn't exist, as grim pointed out, it's proving that none exist. it's like taking a firm stance on aliens, at this point we just don't know if they exist.
Expand Quote
I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
we could prove\disprove the teapot thing now...
it's a disanalogous over simplification to compare a teapot floating in space to a diety. no one has ever suspected the teapot exists and diety has been debated throughout the history of mankind.
your also not going to find any kind of science explaining phenomian related to space teapots: http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality (http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality)
im not talking about a single deity in general, im saying that we have to have some sort of definition of what it is we are talking about. e.g., if we can define deity, we can argue whether they exist or not. the problem is that we often discuss the existence of non things, in that we are not actually talking about anything definitive.
when asked if you believe in god, we must first understand what the person is asking. i personally have no idea of what a god actually is, so i cant even discuss it. if someone says they believe in the god of the bible, i feel more than comfortable saying that i believe that that god does not exist.
i don't believe in the christian interpretation of god but i damn sure wouldn't try to prove that it couldn't be true. david hume didn't even assert that god didn't exist, only that it can't be proven.
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It is likely that Hume was skeptical both about religious belief (at least as demanded by the religious organisations of his time) and of the complete atheism promoted by such contemporaries as Baron d'Holbach. Russell (2008) suggests that perhaps Hume's position is best characterised by the term "irreligion". O'Connor (2001, p19) writes that Hume "did not believe in the God of standard theism. ... but he did not rule out all concepts of deity". Also, "ambiguity suited his purposes, and this creates difficulty in definitively pinning down his final position on religion".
pretty sure no one in this thread is going to one up hume.
but i would assert that the bible and christianity seems comically unlikely to be the correct answer to the diety question. but i'd assert that about all religions that i've been exposed to. they all seem very silly and are extremely hard to believe. but at the same time it's hard to deny that religion has always been a part of mankind and even harder to imagine what life would be like if no one believed. would it really be better or would we all just be a bunch of assholes (ala southpark "go god go").
Hume took skepticism to the next level. he argued that it is impossible to prove anything basically. that is why he would say that it is impossible to disprove something. with that, it is reasonable to maintain the non existence of something. he would argue that you can not disprove the existence of the flying spaghetti monster, but he would also have not believe it either.
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as i argued before, if you give someone a definition of something, it is possible to either prove or disprove it. to say "there is no god" is non sequitur if that god is not defined. if someone defines it, e.g., they say that god is perfect, you can prove that perfection is only a subjective attribute with no quantitative qualities, therefore, that god has been disproven. in fact, you can only believe or not believe in a thing once you are given the information. if someone says, "there is a god who loves when we molest children" of course you can say that you are not sure if he exists, but in all probability, this being does not exist and it is not unreasonable to say, "i believe this being does not exist."
i understand your point, but i wasnt postulating a negative. the statement was a reaction to a positive proposition, hence the nature of disbelief as you illustrated earlier.
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D'oh, sorry for my misinterpretation!
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it's not proving that a single diety doesn't exist, as grim pointed out, it's proving that none exist. it's like taking a firm stance on aliens, at this point we just don't know if they exist.
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I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
we could prove\disprove the teapot thing now...
it's a disanalogous over simplification to compare a teapot floating in space to a diety. no one has ever suspected the teapot exists and diety has been debated throughout the history of mankind.
your also not going to find any kind of science explaining phenomian related to space teapots: http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality (http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality)
im not talking about a single deity in general, im saying that we have to have some sort of definition of what it is we are talking about. e.g., if we can define deity, we can argue whether they exist or not. the problem is that we often discuss the existence of non things, in that we are not actually talking about anything definitive.
when asked if you believe in god, we must first understand what the person is asking. i personally have no idea of what a god actually is, so i cant even discuss it. if someone says they believe in the god of the bible, i feel more than comfortable saying that i believe that that god does not exist.
i don't believe in the christian interpretation of god but i damn sure wouldn't try to prove that it couldn't be true. david hume didn't even assert that god didn't exist, only that it can't be proven.
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It is likely that Hume was skeptical both about religious belief (at least as demanded by the religious organisations of his time) and of the complete atheism promoted by such contemporaries as Baron d'Holbach. Russell (2008) suggests that perhaps Hume's position is best characterised by the term "irreligion". O'Connor (2001, p19) writes that Hume "did not believe in the God of standard theism. ... but he did not rule out all concepts of deity". Also, "ambiguity suited his purposes, and this creates difficulty in definitively pinning down his final position on religion".
pretty sure no one in this thread is going to one up hume.
but i would assert that the bible and christianity seems comically unlikely to be the correct answer to the diety question. but i'd assert that about all religions that i've been exposed to. they all seem very silly and are extremely hard to believe. but at the same time it's hard to deny that religion has always been a part of mankind and even harder to imagine what life would be like if no one believed. would it really be better or would we all just be a bunch of assholes (ala southpark "go god go").
Hume took skepticism to the next level. he argued that it is impossible to prove anything basically. that is why he would say that it is impossible to disprove something. with that, it is reasonable to maintain the non existence of something. he would argue that you can not disprove the existence of the flying spaghetti monster, but he would also have not believe it either.
right but if someone tells you there is a flying spaghetti monster then what's the point in disproving them? who cares if they think that.
you indicated earlier that you were concerned about the christian influence but you are assuming that somehow people who are too lazy to think for themselves would somehow become enlightened and not just find another way of justifying their beliefs?
but i'll bite, prove the christian god doesn't exist...
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it's not proving that a single diety doesn't exist, as grim pointed out, it's proving that none exist. it's like taking a firm stance on aliens, at this point we just don't know if they exist.
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I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out� http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
we could prove\disprove the teapot thing now...
it's a disanalogous over simplification to compare a teapot floating in space to a diety. no one has ever suspected the teapot exists and diety has been debated throughout the history of mankind.
your also not going to find any kind of science explaining phenomian related to space teapots: http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality (http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality)
All this is irrelevant to the logic of what Russel was saying. He's not comparing a teapot, or our purely physical conception of a teapot, with that massive philosophical abstraction that is belief in "god". The societal and historical context surrounding this concept has absolutely no bearing on its plausibility in a purely logical sense, if you accept that human beings do not have innate access to perfect spiritual knowledge (or perhaps any spiritual "knowledge" at all, given that we tend to define knowledge as a tenuous conclusion based on empirical observations and probabilities, not divine inspiration). The point is, you can't make unfalsifiable ontological statements about a thing (either guaranteeing its existence or defining the qualities of its existence) and expect rational people to accept them based solely on the grandeur of your ideas or their widespread acceptance within society (both qualities being often misinterpreted as providing plausibility or even positive proof to said concepts by less stringent thinkers). Of course, you're never going to convince the millions of people who have been weened on some sort of religious belief since birth that their entire system of moral values and spiritual convictions is based on an illusion simply with recourse to logic, because humans are highly irrational when it comes time to evaluate beliefs that we consider integral to our identity or fundamental being. I think the problem lies in letting the debate be dominated (as it was in Russel's day) by people who hold the 'celestial teapot' of 'flying spaghetti monster' outlook that postulates the existence of God as an a priori truth.
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D'oh, sorry for my misinterpretation!
no problem ;D
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it's not proving that a single diety doesn't exist, as grim pointed out, it's proving that none exist. it's like taking a firm stance on aliens, at this point we just don't know if they exist.
Expand Quote
I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
we could prove\disprove the teapot thing now...
it's a disanalogous over simplification to compare a teapot floating in space to a diety. no one has ever suspected the teapot exists and diety has been debated throughout the history of mankind.
your also not going to find any kind of science explaining phenomian related to space teapots: http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality (http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality)
im not talking about a single deity in general, im saying that we have to have some sort of definition of what it is we are talking about. e.g., if we can define deity, we can argue whether they exist or not. the problem is that we often discuss the existence of non things, in that we are not actually talking about anything definitive.
when asked if you believe in god, we must first understand what the person is asking. i personally have no idea of what a god actually is, so i cant even discuss it. if someone says they believe in the god of the bible, i feel more than comfortable saying that i believe that that god does not exist.
i don't believe in the christian interpretation of god but i damn sure wouldn't try to prove that it couldn't be true. david hume didn't even assert that god didn't exist, only that it can't be proven.
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It is likely that Hume was skeptical both about religious belief (at least as demanded by the religious organisations of his time) and of the complete atheism promoted by such contemporaries as Baron d'Holbach. Russell (2008) suggests that perhaps Hume's position is best characterised by the term "irreligion". O'Connor (2001, p19) writes that Hume "did not believe in the God of standard theism. ... but he did not rule out all concepts of deity". Also, "ambiguity suited his purposes, and this creates difficulty in definitively pinning down his final position on religion".
pretty sure no one in this thread is going to one up hume.
but i would assert that the bible and christianity seems comically unlikely to be the correct answer to the diety question. but i'd assert that about all religions that i've been exposed to. they all seem very silly and are extremely hard to believe. but at the same time it's hard to deny that religion has always been a part of mankind and even harder to imagine what life would be like if no one believed. would it really be better or would we all just be a bunch of assholes (ala southpark "go god go").
Hume took skepticism to the next level. he argued that it is impossible to prove anything basically. that is why he would say that it is impossible to disprove something. with that, it is reasonable to maintain the non existence of something. he would argue that you can not disprove the existence of the flying spaghetti monster, but he would also have not believe it either.
right but if someone tells you there is a flying spaghetti monster then what's the point in disproving them? who cares if they think that.
you indicated earlier that you were concerned about the christian influence but you are assuming that somehow people who are too lazy to think for themselves would somehow become enlightened and not just find another way of justifying their beliefs?
but i'll bite, prove the christian god doesn't exist...
haha, its already been done. the god of the bible is said to be "all powerful" or omnipotent. that is a self contradicting proposition. i dont understand your second sentence. i dont know how i am assuming that people would somehow become enlightened.
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it's not proving that a single diety doesn't exist, as grim pointed out, it's proving that none exist. it's like taking a firm stance on aliens, at this point we just don't know if they exist.
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I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
we could prove\disprove the teapot thing now...
it's a disanalogous over simplification to compare a teapot floating in space to a diety. no one has ever suspected the teapot exists and diety has been debated throughout the history of mankind.
your also not going to find any kind of science explaining phenomian related to space teapots: http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality (http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality)
All this is irrelevant to the logic of what Russel was saying. He's not comparing a teapot, or our purely physical conception of a teapot, with that massive philosophical abstraction that is belief in "god". The societal and historical context surrounding this concept has absolutely no bearing on its plausibility in a purely logical sense, if you accept that human beings do not have innate access to perfect spiritual knowledge (or perhaps any spiritual "knowledge" at all, given that we tend to define knowledge as a tenuous conclusion based on empirical observations and probabilities, not divine inspiration). The point is, you can't make unfalsifiable ontological statements about a thing (either guaranteeing its existence or defining the qualities of its existence) and expect rational people to accept them based solely on the grandeur of your ideas or their widespread acceptance within society (both qualities being often misinterpreted as providing plausibility or even positive proof to said concepts by less stringent thinkers). Of course, you're never going to convince the millions of people who have been weened on some sort of religious belief since birth that their entire system of moral values and spiritual convictions is based on an illusion simply with recourse to logic, because humans are highly irrational when it comes time to evaluate beliefs that we consider integral to our identity or fundamental being. I think the problem lies in letting the debate be dominated? (as it was in Russel's day) by people who hold the 'celestial teapot' of 'flying spaghetti monster' outlook that postulates the existence of God as an a priori truth.
so in that case aliens don't exist... no need for further discussion
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D'oh, sorry for my misinterpretation!
no problem ;D
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it's not proving that a single diety doesn't exist, as grim pointed out, it's proving that none exist. it's like taking a firm stance on aliens, at this point we just don't know if they exist.
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I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
we could prove\disprove the teapot thing now...
it's a disanalogous over simplification to compare a teapot floating in space to a diety. no one has ever suspected the teapot exists and diety has been debated throughout the history of mankind.
your also not going to find any kind of science explaining phenomian related to space teapots: http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality (http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality)
im not talking about a single deity in general, im saying that we have to have some sort of definition of what it is we are talking about. e.g., if we can define deity, we can argue whether they exist or not. the problem is that we often discuss the existence of non things, in that we are not actually talking about anything definitive.
when asked if you believe in god, we must first understand what the person is asking. i personally have no idea of what a god actually is, so i cant even discuss it. if someone says they believe in the god of the bible, i feel more than comfortable saying that i believe that that god does not exist.
i don't believe in the christian interpretation of god but i damn sure wouldn't try to prove that it couldn't be true. david hume didn't even assert that god didn't exist, only that it can't be proven.
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It is likely that Hume was skeptical both about religious belief (at least as demanded by the religious organisations of his time) and of the complete atheism promoted by such contemporaries as Baron d'Holbach. Russell (2008) suggests that perhaps Hume's position is best characterised by the term "irreligion". O'Connor (2001, p19) writes that Hume "did not believe in the God of standard theism. ... but he did not rule out all concepts of deity". Also, "ambiguity suited his purposes, and this creates difficulty in definitively pinning down his final position on religion".
pretty sure no one in this thread is going to one up hume.
but i would assert that the bible and christianity seems comically unlikely to be the correct answer to the diety question. but i'd assert that about all religions that i've been exposed to. they all seem very silly and are extremely hard to believe. but at the same time it's hard to deny that religion has always been a part of mankind and even harder to imagine what life would be like if no one believed. would it really be better or would we all just be a bunch of assholes (ala southpark "go god go").
Hume took skepticism to the next level. he argued that it is impossible to prove anything basically. that is why he would say that it is impossible to disprove something. with that, it is reasonable to maintain the non existence of something. he would argue that you can not disprove the existence of the flying spaghetti monster, but he would also have not believe it either.
right but if someone tells you there is a flying spaghetti monster then what's the point in disproving them? who cares if they think that.
you indicated earlier that you were concerned about the christian influence but you are assuming that somehow people who are too lazy to think for themselves would somehow become enlightened and not just find another way of justifying their beliefs?
but i'll bite, prove the christian god doesn't exist...
haha, its already been done. the god of the bible is said to be "all powerful" or omnipotent. that is a self contradicting proposition. i dont understand your second sentence. i dont know how i am assuming that people would somehow become enlightened.
for that paradox to work you have to assume that the task is illogical (create a sqaure circle, create something that can't be destroyed, etc...). i'm pretty sure that's taking the word out of context.
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it's not proving that a single diety doesn't exist, as grim pointed out, it's proving that none exist. it's like taking a firm stance on aliens, at this point we just don't know if they exist.
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I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
we could prove\disprove the teapot thing now...
it's a disanalogous over simplification to compare a teapot floating in space to a diety. no one has ever suspected the teapot exists and diety has been debated throughout the history of mankind.
your also not going to find any kind of science explaining phenomian related to space teapots: http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality (http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality)
All this is irrelevant to the logic of what Russel was saying. He's not comparing a teapot, or our purely physical conception of a teapot, with that massive philosophical abstraction that is belief in "god". The societal and historical context surrounding this concept has absolutely no bearing on its plausibility in a purely logical sense, if you accept that human beings do not have innate access to perfect spiritual knowledge (or perhaps any spiritual "knowledge" at all, given that we tend to define knowledge as a tenuous conclusion based on empirical observations and probabilities, not divine inspiration). The point is, you can't make unfalsifiable ontological statements about a thing (either guaranteeing its existence or defining the qualities of its existence) and expect rational people to accept them based solely on the grandeur of your ideas or their widespread acceptance within society (both qualities being often misinterpreted as providing plausibility or even positive proof to said concepts by less stringent thinkers). Of course, you're never going to convince the millions of people who have been weened on some sort of religious belief since birth that their entire system of moral values and spiritual convictions is based on an illusion simply with recourse to logic, because humans are highly irrational when it comes time to evaluate beliefs that we consider integral to our identity or fundamental being. I think the problem lies in letting the debate be dominated?� (as it was in Russel's day) by people who hold the 'celestial teapot' of 'flying spaghetti monster' outlook that postulates the existence of God as an a priori truth.
so in that case aliens don't exist... no need for further discussion
No...the probability of alien lifeforms of some sort existing is rather large considering the number of potential earth like planets in the universe, so there is need for further discussion and, more importantly, RESEARCH, on that matter. Again, I'm not trying to unequivocally prove that there isn't a god or that there is no possibility that one exists as we've already established that it's logically impossible. The alien thing is an entirely different matter because we can observe that biological life does exist in some form (i.e. us and every other animal on earth) whereas we cannot make the same observation regarding divine beings.
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
There's a difference between "believing" and "knowing", bubba.
can you explain that difference
be?lieve
[bih-leev] Show IPA
verb, -lieved, -liev?ing.
?verb (used without object)
1.
to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so:
Badda bing, badda boom.
you didnt define what it means to know, and you didnt show a difference.
Take away what I made bold in the initial definition and there ya go.
I figured you'd have enough common sense to figure at least that much out, but I suppose I gave you too much credit. Now I'm embarrassed.
you never defined what it is to know, only a vague definition of what it is to believe. you should be embarrassed because you think it is easy.
You're right, I do think knowing the definitions of elementary words is easy. That's because I'm not fucking regular.
And besides, you're missing the point completely.
if you believe that those are elementary terms, you have a very unsophisticated way of looking at the world.
"Knowing" and "believing" aren't complicated terms. You're just really stupid.
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
There's a difference between "believing" and "knowing", bubba.
can you explain that difference
be?lieve
[bih-leev] Show IPA
verb, -lieved, -liev?ing.
?verb (used without object)
1.
to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so:
Badda bing, badda boom.
you didnt define what it means to know, and you didnt show a difference.
Take away what I made bold in the initial definition and there ya go.
I figured you'd have enough common sense to figure at least that much out, but I suppose I gave you too much credit. Now I'm embarrassed.
you never defined what it is to know, only a vague definition of what it is to believe. you should be embarrassed because you think it is easy.
You're right, I do think knowing the definitions of elementary words is easy. That's because I'm not fucking regular.
And besides, you're missing the point completely.
if you believe that those are elementary terms, you have a very unsophisticated way of looking at the world.
"Knowing" and "believing" aren't complicated terms. You're just really stupid.
ok, im stupid.
here is what i posted earlier illustrating the complexities of defining the terms. but youre smart, you wont have any problem with it.
knowledge is most often taken as something empirical. but as the history of ideas has shown us, empiricism = reificaction. the deification of concepts. to KNOW something is to BELIEVE something is true. to believe something rests upon our impulses and perceptions. we define our perceptions using a finite resource, our mind. the language that we use in order to understand the world that we live in is beyond limited. the very act of communicating is a negation of the substance of things. the idea that things are of a substance is logical, but removed from the substance themselves.
this leaves us with a conundrum. shall we acknowledge the void and continue to speak using objective terms, or do we communicate on a more vague, disconnected level. i personally believe it is a combination of the two. a true dialogue can only occur when the problem of interpretation is agreed on and the terms are settled. e.g., if one believes that it is possible to know not only that things ARE, but WHAT they are, they will be unable to come to a consensus concerning a matter with one who believes that at best we can describe what it APPEARS that things are.
in my opinion, certain words serve no real good, e.g., to know. the word implies more than we are capable of. The word believe is also shallow and leaves room for those who want to justify their belief in a god or anything super natural. this has been done for quite some time now and honestly gets under my skin.
so we are stuck with limited language and an impossible situation. in the end we can only be responsible for our own beliefs and this is where many are frustrated and seek a more objective language.
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it's not proving that a single diety doesn't exist, as grim pointed out, it's proving that none exist. it's like taking a firm stance on aliens, at this point we just don't know if they exist.
Expand Quote
I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
we could prove\disprove the teapot thing now...
it's a disanalogous over simplification to compare a teapot floating in space to a diety. no one has ever suspected the teapot exists and diety has been debated throughout the history of mankind.
your also not going to find any kind of science explaining phenomian related to space teapots: http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality (http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality)
All this is irrelevant to the logic of what Russel was saying. He's not comparing a teapot, or our purely physical conception of a teapot, with that massive philosophical abstraction that is belief in "god". The societal and historical context surrounding this concept has absolutely no bearing on its plausibility in a purely logical sense, if you accept that human beings do not have innate access to perfect spiritual knowledge (or perhaps any spiritual "knowledge" at all, given that we tend to define knowledge as a tenuous conclusion based on empirical observations and probabilities, not divine inspiration). The point is, you can't make unfalsifiable ontological statements about a thing (either guaranteeing its existence or defining the qualities of its existence) and expect rational people to accept them based solely on the grandeur of your ideas or their widespread acceptance within society (both qualities being often misinterpreted as providing plausibility or even positive proof to said concepts by less stringent thinkers). Of course, you're never going to convince the millions of people who have been weened on some sort of religious belief since birth that their entire system of moral values and spiritual convictions is based on an illusion simply with recourse to logic, because humans are highly irrational when it comes time to evaluate beliefs that we consider integral to our identity or fundamental being. I think the problem lies in letting the debate be dominated? (as it was in Russel's day) by people who hold the 'celestial teapot' of 'flying spaghetti monster' outlook that postulates the existence of God as an a priori truth.
so in that case aliens don't exist... no need for further discussion
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D'oh, sorry for my misinterpretation!
no problem ;D
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it's not proving that a single diety doesn't exist, as grim pointed out, it's proving that none exist. it's like taking a firm stance on aliens, at this point we just don't know if they exist.
Expand Quote
I hadn't seen this mentioned yet - If you're not familiar I recommend you check it out?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)
The 'God' debate is stupid, we should stop it here at 4 pages before it gets out of control. The truth is people believe what they want to beleive, debating is not going to change anyones mind regardless of what side your on.
Seriously tho, check the above link. This one's good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)
we could prove\disprove the teapot thing now...
it's a disanalogous over simplification to compare a teapot floating in space to a diety. no one has ever suspected the teapot exists and diety has been debated throughout the history of mankind.
your also not going to find any kind of science explaining phenomian related to space teapots: http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality (http://www.npr.org/series/104257486/the-science-of-spirituality)
im not talking about a single deity in general, im saying that we have to have some sort of definition of what it is we are talking about. e.g., if we can define deity, we can argue whether they exist or not. the problem is that we often discuss the existence of non things, in that we are not actually talking about anything definitive.
when asked if you believe in god, we must first understand what the person is asking. i personally have no idea of what a god actually is, so i cant even discuss it. if someone says they believe in the god of the bible, i feel more than comfortable saying that i believe that that god does not exist.
i don't believe in the christian interpretation of god but i damn sure wouldn't try to prove that it couldn't be true. david hume didn't even assert that god didn't exist, only that it can't be proven.
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It is likely that Hume was skeptical both about religious belief (at least as demanded by the religious organisations of his time) and of the complete atheism promoted by such contemporaries as Baron d'Holbach. Russell (2008) suggests that perhaps Hume's position is best characterised by the term "irreligion". O'Connor (2001, p19) writes that Hume "did not believe in the God of standard theism. ... but he did not rule out all concepts of deity". Also, "ambiguity suited his purposes, and this creates difficulty in definitively pinning down his final position on religion".
pretty sure no one in this thread is going to one up hume.
but i would assert that the bible and christianity seems comically unlikely to be the correct answer to the diety question. but i'd assert that about all religions that i've been exposed to. they all seem very silly and are extremely hard to believe. but at the same time it's hard to deny that religion has always been a part of mankind and even harder to imagine what life would be like if no one believed. would it really be better or would we all just be a bunch of assholes (ala southpark "go god go").
Hume took skepticism to the next level. he argued that it is impossible to prove anything basically. that is why he would say that it is impossible to disprove something. with that, it is reasonable to maintain the non existence of something. he would argue that you can not disprove the existence of the flying spaghetti monster, but he would also have not believe it either.
right but if someone tells you there is a flying spaghetti monster then what's the point in disproving them? who cares if they think that.
you indicated earlier that you were concerned about the christian influence but you are assuming that somehow people who are too lazy to think for themselves would somehow become enlightened and not just find another way of justifying their beliefs?
but i'll bite, prove the christian god doesn't exist...
haha, its already been done. the god of the bible is said to be "all powerful" or omnipotent. that is a self contradicting proposition. i dont understand your second sentence. i dont know how i am assuming that people would somehow become enlightened.
for that paradox to work you have to assume that the task is illogical (create a sqaure circle, create something that can't be destroyed, etc...). i'm pretty sure that's taking the word out of context.
the bible says that with god "all things are possible." so, what is it that i am taking out of context? the whole idea of being all powerful is that you can do the "impossible" things that are illogical fit into that rubric.
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Dude, when I was talking to the lawyer he was getting so psyched. He was writing shit down as I just rambled on. "I basically want to be shoved out on a pyre and torched. We don't have to have my friends shoot flaming arrows at me as much as I want that. I don't think I know any talented archers. Basically find a way to have me set on fire in a lake and then I want there to be a 3 day party."
The dude was SO psyched and a week later he called me all bummed out, "I'm sorry sir, they said that the human body is made up of some things that could cause some serious problems with the ecosystem. I am really sorry, is there anything else that could come close?"
"No, but it's ok, just torch me and donate my shit to people who need it. Can I still get the 3 day party?"
"Yes, that's not an issue."
"Ok, awesome. We're good."
thank you for sharing that with us, i think hate gets this thread better than all of us
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Dude, when I was talking to the lawyer he was getting so psyched. He was writing shit down as I just rambled on. "I basically want to be shoved out on a pyre and torched. We don't have to have my friends shoot flaming arrows at me as much as I want that. I don't think I know any talented archers. Basically find a way to have me set on fire in a lake and then I want there to be a 3 day party."
The dude was SO psyched and a week later he called me all bummed out, "I'm sorry sir, they said that the human body is made up of some things that could cause some serious problems with the ecosystem. I am really sorry, is there anything else that could come close?"
"No, but it's ok, just torch me and donate my shit to people who need it. Can I still get the 3 day party?"
"Yes, that's not an issue."
"Ok, awesome. We're good."
thank you for sharing that with us, i think hate gets this thread better than all of us
dont kid yourself brother, i am living the dream. but hate! knows whats up for sure.
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
There's a difference between "believing" and "knowing", bubba.
can you explain that difference
be?lieve
[bih-leev] Show IPA
verb, -lieved, -liev?ing.
?verb (used without object)
1.
to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so:
Badda bing, badda boom.
you didnt define what it means to know, and you didnt show a difference.
Take away what I made bold in the initial definition and there ya go.
I figured you'd have enough common sense to figure at least that much out, but I suppose I gave you too much credit. Now I'm embarrassed.
you never defined what it is to know, only a vague definition of what it is to believe. you should be embarrassed because you think it is easy.
You're right, I do think knowing the definitions of elementary words is easy. That's because I'm not fucking regular.
And besides, you're missing the point completely.
if you believe that those are elementary terms, you have a very unsophisticated way of looking at the world.
"Knowing" and "believing" aren't complicated terms. You're just really stupid.
ok, im stupid.
here is what i posted earlier illustrating the complexities of defining the terms. but youre smart, you wont have any problem with it.
knowledge is most often taken as something empirical. but as the history of ideas has shown us, empiricism = reificaction. the deification of concepts. to KNOW something is to BELIEVE something is true. to believe something rests upon our impulses and perceptions. we define our perceptions using a finite resource, our mind. the language that we use in order to understand the world that we live in is beyond limited. the very act of communicating is a negation of the substance of things. the idea that things are of a substance is logical, but removed from the substance themselves.
this leaves us with a conundrum. shall we acknowledge the void and continue to speak using objective terms, or do we communicate on a more vague, disconnected level. i personally believe it is a combination of the two. a true dialogue can only occur when the problem of interpretation is agreed on and the terms are settled. e.g., if one believes that it is possible to know not only that things ARE, but WHAT they are, they will be unable to come to a consensus concerning a matter with one who believes that at best we can describe what it APPEARS that things are.
in my opinion, certain words serve no real good, e.g., to know. the word implies more than we are capable of. The word believe is also shallow and leaves room for those who want to justify their belief in a god or anything super natural. this has been done for quite some time now and honestly gets under my skin.
so we are stuck with limited language and an impossible situation. in the end we can only be responsible for our own beliefs and this is where many are frustrated and seek a more objective language.
*sigh*
Here's the point ----> .
Here's you -------> (http://pichars.org/store/2256_original_Ylm5w.)
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
There's a difference between "believing" and "knowing", bubba.
can you explain that difference
be?lieve
[bih-leev] Show IPA
verb, -lieved, -liev?ing.
?verb (used without object)
1.
to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so:
Badda bing, badda boom.
you didnt define what it means to know, and you didnt show a difference.
Take away what I made bold in the initial definition and there ya go.
I figured you'd have enough common sense to figure at least that much out, but I suppose I gave you too much credit. Now I'm embarrassed.
you never defined what it is to know, only a vague definition of what it is to believe. you should be embarrassed because you think it is easy.
You're right, I do think knowing the definitions of elementary words is easy. That's because I'm not fucking regular.
And besides, you're missing the point completely.
if you believe that those are elementary terms, you have a very unsophisticated way of looking at the world.
"Knowing" and "believing" aren't complicated terms. You're just really stupid.
ok, im stupid.
here is what i posted earlier illustrating the complexities of defining the terms. but youre smart, you wont have any problem with it.
knowledge is most often taken as something empirical. but as the history of ideas has shown us, empiricism = reificaction. the deification of concepts. to KNOW something is to BELIEVE something is true. to believe something rests upon our impulses and perceptions. we define our perceptions using a finite resource, our mind. the language that we use in order to understand the world that we live in is beyond limited. the very act of communicating is a negation of the substance of things. the idea that things are of a substance is logical, but removed from the substance themselves.
this leaves us with a conundrum. shall we acknowledge the void and continue to speak using objective terms, or do we communicate on a more vague, disconnected level. i personally believe it is a combination of the two. a true dialogue can only occur when the problem of interpretation is agreed on and the terms are settled. e.g., if one believes that it is possible to know not only that things ARE, but WHAT they are, they will be unable to come to a consensus concerning a matter with one who believes that at best we can describe what it APPEARS that things are.
in my opinion, certain words serve no real good, e.g., to know. the word implies more than we are capable of. The word believe is also shallow and leaves room for those who want to justify their belief in a god or anything super natural. this has been done for quite some time now and honestly gets under my skin.
so we are stuck with limited language and an impossible situation. in the end we can only be responsible for our own beliefs and this is where many are frustrated and seek a more objective language.
*sigh*
Here's the point ----> .
Here's you -------> (http://pichars.org/store/2256_original_Ylm5w.)
haha, youre too dumb to carry on an intelligent conversation and you resort to childish insults. i like it.
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Hold on. So, maybe with belief there's more of a chance that people will lack empirical evidence than with knowledge? Belief allows room for faith, while knowledge tends to reflect evidence of some kind with the potential to inform or instruct. Is this just semantics?
Didn't someone, I'm thinking Robert Anton Wilson, have an idea of excluding the use of the word 'know' from speech altogether? What I think you're getting at, Geoff, is a more philosophical question of language. I admire what you're trying to say. Modern philosophy at some point looks at the use of language as the ultimate problem to be tackled.
Martin Heidegger on Religion
Heidegger On Religion (English Subtitles) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WDmRAASuKc#)
Also, with all the talk of flying spaghetti monsters;
Yog-Sothoth
(http://www.boingboing.net/Yog-Sothoth_couleur.jpeg)
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Bill Hicks - Positive Drug Story (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX1CvW38cHA&feature=related#)
"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves."
-Hermetic Sage Bill Hicks.
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"in order to know that a given proposition is true, one must not only believe the relevant true proposition, but one must also have justification for doing so"
An atheist can't refute claims of a god until the definition of that god is mutually agreed on. Once god has been defined, they mostly take the position that all of the evidence they have been presented with has shown this specific god does not need to and does not exist.
The point of Russell's tea pot is that just because you can't prove something doesn't exist does not mean it exists. If I told you pink unicorns exist you couldn't disprove me, but the majority of us don't believe they do. You could argue that you've never seen one or that there are no fossils or physical evidence to prove this, but unicorns are very mysterious and disappear when ever you try to look for them. Their fossils are also immediately destroyed when the unicorn dies.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike."
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i was hoping to make up my mind 1 or 2 seconds before i die
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I don't know about you guys, but I'm glad geoff has managed to sort this whole religion mess once and for all.
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"in order to know that a given proposition is true, one must not only believe the relevant true proposition, but one must also have justification for doing so"
An atheist can't refute claims of a god until the definition of that god is mutually agreed on. Once god has been defined, they mostly take the position that all of the evidence they have been presented with has shown this specific god does not need to and does not exist.
The point of Russell's tea pot is that just because you can't prove something doesn't exist does not mean it exists. If I told you pink unicorns exist you couldn't disprove me, but the majority of us don't believe they do. You could argue that you've never seen one or that there are no fossils or physical evidence to prove this, but unicorns are very mysterious and disappear when ever you try to look for them. Their fossils are also immediately destroyed when the unicorn dies.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike."
So knowledge is justified belief?
"Robert Anton Wilson claimed in Cosmic Trigger: Volume 1 "not to believe anything", since "belief is the death of intelligence". He described this approach as "Maybe Logic."
Believing in something invisible doesn't necessarily equate with believing in something nonexistent. Brainwaves, for example. Maybe a couple hundred years ago that would have seemed like a paranormal belief or maybe just fringe science.
Blade Runner - The Dream (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhDDybv8_Ro#ws)
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So knowledge is justified belief?
Knowledge and belief are two very broad words.
In science, knowledge could be considered a belief based on observation, collected data, the ability to falsify the position, and in some cases make predictions based on the data acquired. Having said that, people often "know" the wrong thing, so in the world of science theories are reworked with better data, as theories are self correcting.
From my understanding, supernatural faith is (loosely) knowledge without evidence.
Then there's belief... rational or irrational? I can't see my car, but I think it's rational to believe it's there since I parked in a secure garage like I've done for close to nine years. It would be irrational for me to believe that when I get out of the office and return to my car, it will instead be a pogo stick.
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So knowledge is justified belief?
Knowledge and belief are two very broad words.
In science, knowledge could be considered a belief based on observation, collected data, the ability to falsify the position, and in some cases make predictions based on the data acquired. Having said that, people often "know" the wrong thing, so in the world of science theories are reworked with better data, as theories are self correcting.
From my understanding, supernatural faith is (loosely) knowledge without evidence.
Then there's belief... rational or irrational? I can't see my car, but I think it's rational to believe it's there since I parked in a secure garage like I've done for close to nine years. It would be irrational for me to believe that when I get out of the office and return to my car, it will instead be a pogo stick.
People can "know" the wrong thing, I agree with you. Information can be misinterpreted and then reinterpreted in fields beyond science as well.
Can there even be such a thing as knowledge without evidence, or justification? To me faith is distinct from knowledge altogether. What about "knowledge" of UFO's? If you've never seen one would that be knowledge without evidence? Arent there plenty of instances where knowledge is purported without any physical evidence being available, maybe as in someone's testimony? Or maybe that's relying on the probability of whether or not someone is telling the truth.
Faith in mankind, now there's something many people would consider irrational.
how about irrational numbers? :P :P
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I don't consider irrational faith to be knowledge in the same sense as I do compared to knowledge being acquired by direct or indirect observation.
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Right, but someone might develop an irrational faith that stems from a direct or indirect observation, couldnt they?
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I highly recommend these videos (videos 3 and 4 especially) for fans of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris:
Noam Chomsky On Religion and Political Ideals ( Part 1 ) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0M1H5CBUcY#)
Noam Chomsky On Religion and Political Ideals ( Part 2 ) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mCRGUzbHDM#)
Noam Chomsky On Religion and Political Ideals ( Part 3 ) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CforHIk0jRw#)
Chomsky on Religion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNDG7ErY-k4#ws)
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Right, but someone might develop an irrational faith that stems from a direct or indirect observation, couldnt they?
Yeah, but it would require injecting assumptions into the observation rather than deriving information from it... sort've like creationism/ID/Young Earthers.
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(http://cache.ohinternet.com/images/d/dc/Fsm.jpg)
n his saucy name i pray, ramen.
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Right, but someone might develop an irrational faith that stems from a direct or indirect observation, couldnt they?
Yeah, but it would require injecting assumptions into the observation rather than deriving information from it... sort've like creationism/ID/Young Earthers.
Yeah, irrational faith comes in all flavors.
7:11
Pulp Fiction Ending Scene (Diner) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMRi-gFeK-M#)
I highly recommend these videos (videos 3 and 4 especially) for fans of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris:
Noam Chomsky On Religion and Political Ideals ( Part 1 ) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0M1H5CBUcY#)
Noam Chomsky On Religion and Political Ideals ( Part 2 ) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mCRGUzbHDM#)
Noam Chomsky On Religion and Political Ideals ( Part 3 ) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CforHIk0jRw#)
Chomsky on Religion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNDG7ErY-k4#ws)
When asked in an interview whether or not he thought 9/11 was an inside job Noam Chomsky said, "Even if it was, who cares".
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So knowledge is justified belief?
Knowledge and belief are two very broad words.
In science, knowledge could be considered a belief based on observation, collected data, the ability to falsify the position, and in some cases make predictions based on the data acquired. Having said that, people often "know" the wrong thing, so in the world of science theories are reworked with better data, as theories are self correcting.
From my understanding, supernatural faith is (loosely) knowledge without evidence.
Then there's belief... rational or irrational? I can't see my car, but I think it's rational to believe it's there since I parked in a secure garage like I've done for close to nine years. It would be irrational for me to believe that when I get out of the office and return to my car, it will instead be a pogo stick.
Scientific materialism relies on the irrational belief that the physical world has an objective reality.
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I disagree, as there are plenty of scientific disciplines that acknowledge that reality is subjective... it's why we have cameras that see in the same wavelengths as insects or emitted from celestial bodies, sonar, the study of animals, microbes, and all the way down (or up to the grand) levels of quantum physics, where the rules of reality as we know them don't even apply.
Science simply looks at the natural world and tries to break down the mechanics of it all as best it can.
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he didn't say all scientific disciplines rely on that belief, just those that subscribe to a materialist view of the universe.
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God is a metaphore for human optimal experience AKA "flow" or other sorts of altered states of consciousness (pick one you enjoy) in modern psychology. Skateboarding and other sorts of behaviour provides that feeling.
I dont give a fuck about freedom of belief if I dont have the freedom of interacting with nature and myself like I want, as long as I dont hurt anybody else. That implies doing all sorts of drugs. I say that because the western society in which we live in puts too much moral pressure and forces values in people, and thats not democracy. I dont care what the governments thinks it's better for all of us, we all should decide together.
Dont be foolished and shut down, dont believe, experience yourself, know yourself, make mistakes, learn from it and live through. You are the ultimate force, you have the vision, your mind moves matter in some way, and you know it.
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he didn't say all scientific disciplines rely on that belief, just those that subscribe to a materialist view of the universe.
Science studies the natural world, not the supernatural, so to that degree it's all materialistic.
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When asked in an interview whether or not he thought 9/11 was an inside job Noam Chomsky said, "Even if it was, who cares".
Oh lawd. Are you a 9/11 truther David?
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when i told my grandma that i was a vegetarian now, a few years ago after she asked me the fourth time in a few minutes if i wanted a schnitzel, she looked at my with big eyes and said "BUT GOD EXISTS!". i guess i?ll try and tell her that i am an atheist, maybe then she will stop to shove meat down my throat.
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(http://cache.ohinternet.com/images/d/dc/Fsm.jpg)
n his saucy name i pray, ramen.
All you need to do now is to move to Austria and put a colander on your head.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14135523 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14135523)
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he didn't say all scientific disciplines rely on that belief, just those that subscribe to a materialist view of the universe.
If the natural world has no inherent physical reality independent of observation, then the scientific naturalism of atheists is just as false a belief as the exoteric abrahamic faiths. Am I wrong in assuming this materialist ontology in Atheism?
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If the natural world has no inherent physical reality independent of observation,
There are plenty of things in the natural world that haven't been observed scientifically or otherwise.
then the scientific naturalism of atheists is just as false a belief as the exoteric abrahamic faiths.
...but that's not the case. Scientific naturalism simply looks at nature and its mechanics. There's no great leap of logic or conflict of interest in observing things directly or indirectly and deriving data from those observations.
Am I wrong in assuming this materialist ontology in Atheism?
Atheism in and of itself doesn't espouse anything at all. It's a neutral, default position.
When it comes to philosophy, atheists vary.
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Technically, wouldn't agnosticism be the neutral position?
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I'd say it's about as neutral as atheism.
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Technically, wouldn't agnosticism be the neutral position?
i dont see how one can ever be truly neutral, you either believe in god or you dont.
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A lack of theistic belief is a neutral position.
Some people may have worldviews on top of their lack of theistic belief, but then you're dealing with different philosophies that may or may not take a neutral position, or offer up some sort of non-neutral assertation/assumption.
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You guys better not be talking about evolution in here.
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A lack of theistic belief is a neutral position.
Some people may have worldviews on top of their lack of theistic belief, but then you're dealing with different philosophies that may or may not take a neutral position, or offer up some sort of non-neutral assertation/assumption.
good point
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i was hoping to make up my mind 1 or 2 seconds before i die
Well hey, Christianity doesn't distinguish between a last second repentance and lifelong devotion so at least you'd be alright there.
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Believe in what you want, all that ends up mattering is how we treat each other. However it makes sense to you, we're connected. Our time is good or bad because of luck and our behavior.
Beliefs are not private, so you can't believe whatever you want.
Beliefs lead to actions. Actions affect others. Behavior that affects others is a matter of public concern.
So, if religious belief affects any one other than the holder of those beliefs, then public policy should guide our policy to religious beliefs and religious believers.
And if the social harms that follow from religious belief outweigh the social benefits of holding those beliefs, then it is our societal duty to make people rational enough to see that religion is bullshit. Since religion belief brings more harm than good to our world.
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When asked in an interview whether or not he thought 9/11 was an inside job Noam Chomsky said, "Even if it was, who cares".
Oh lawd. Are you a 9/11 truther David?
No. I'm not a truther. I just like the quote.
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Believe in what you want, all that ends up mattering is how we treat each other. However it makes sense to you, we're connected. Our time is good or bad because of luck and our behavior.
Beliefs are not private, so you can't believe whatever you want.
Beliefs lead to actions. Actions affect others. Behavior that affects others is a matter of public concern.
So, if religious belief affects any one other than the holder of those beliefs, then public policy should guide our policy to religious beliefs and religious believers.
And if the social harms that follow from religious belief outweigh the social benefits of holding those beliefs, then it is our societal duty to make people rational enough to see that religion is bullshit. Since religion belief brings more harm than good to our world.
Who says beliefs can't be private? Whether they're right or wrong, a person can believe in what they want.
Whether the belief is scientific, pseudoscientific, or religious, a person has a right to think however they want, even if their beliefs are not justified.
If you want to bring up issues of social harm, then I'd remind you that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and other figure heads massacred and went to war over what were largely secular interests.
Religious belief and monasticism gave rise to scholasticism in Europe.
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Whether the belief is scientific, pseudoscientific, or religious, a person has a right to think however they want, even if their beliefs are not justified.
If you want to bring up issues of social harm, then I'd remind you that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and other figure heads massacred and went to war over what were largely secular interests.
I agree that people have the right to believe what they want, but I don't think that they have the right to do what they want based on their beliefs if its causing harm to other people. Hitler, Stalin, and Pot Pot? None of these evil person's actions were guided by the fact that they were atheist (Hitler is not even confirmed on that regard), they were just evil, evil men. The problem with religious belief is it causes normally rational and intelligent human beings to commit detestable acts based on their faith. Hitler and Stalin etc. were not normally rational human beings to start with.
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A belief that is not justified will have little chance in court. Take the Scopes trial, for example. It's a good one.
Nobody can DO whatever they want, but believing in whatever they want is still fair game.
I never said those people were atheists, I said they were following secular interests.
You can say they were evil men, but on the other hand they were just willing to kill and send people to die for what they believed in.
Are human beings normally rational and intelligent? Thomas Hobbes would disagree.
Who says Hitler and Stalin weren't normally rational? They were simply men with an ungodly amount of power, doing what history tells us men with that much power tend to do.
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A belief that is not justified will have little chance in court. Take the Scopes trial, for example. It's a good one.
Nobody can DO whatever they want, but believing in whatever they want is still fair game.
I never said those people were atheists, I said they were following secular interests.
You can say they were evil men, but on the other hand they were just willing to kill and send people to die for what they believed in.
Are human beings normally rational and intelligent? Thomas Hobbes would disagree.
Who says Hitler and Stalin weren't normally rational? They were simply men with an ungodly amount of power, doing what history tells us men with that much power tend to do.
Nazism (especially the racial component) was a profoundly irrational philosophy, and Stalin was a paranoid egomaniac. Look into how he handled The leadup and initial reaction to operation Barberossa. An excess of power does tend to make people do irrational things - usually with the help of numerous psychological and sociological factors relating to large, powerful autocracies - but I think its safe to say that personality as well as the irrational beliefs that both of them held contributed greatly to their actions.
Humans are certainly not 100% rational beings but the last thing we need at this stage in our development as a species is another faulty belief system to keep the wool pulled over the eyes of much of the population in regards to important social issues. Sure, some of the first academics may have been monks but I hardly think that intelligent design debate is helping kids learn more about biology. Just look at the history of the enlightenment; when reason and a mechanistic outlook on nature started to threaten Christianity as the dominant ideology of the time (at least among a certain class), the church started condemning and banning every science book in sight.
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give this a shot. really interesting read
http://www.highexistence.com/mind-blowing-story-talking-to-god/ (http://www.highexistence.com/mind-blowing-story-talking-to-god/)
edit: i had a feeling this might be overlooked. it's a story of an atheist having a conversation with a random person who claimed to be God. now more likely than not, the story is fiction and the author knows people aren't that dumb in the first place. the way this story is written is pretty brilliant though. not like it's an nbd or anything, but there's some great lines in there. especially this one:
Atheist: ‘so we’re not obliged to “please” you or follow your alleged guidelines or anything like that?’
God: "absolutely not. Never issued a single guideline in the lifetime of this Universe. Have to find your own way out of the maze. And one early improvement is to stop expecting me – or anyone else – to come and help you out.’'
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A belief that is not justified will have little chance in court. Take the Scopes trial, for example. It's a good one.
Nobody can DO whatever they want, but believing in whatever they want is still fair game.
I never said those people were atheists, I said they were following secular interests.
You can say they were evil men, but on the other hand they were just willing to kill and send people to die for what they believed in.
Are human beings normally rational and intelligent? Thomas Hobbes would disagree.
Who says Hitler and Stalin weren't normally rational? They were simply men with an ungodly amount of power, doing what history tells us men with that much power tend to do.
Nazism (especially the racial component) was a profoundly irrational philosophy, and Stalin was a paranoid egomaniac. Look into how he handled The leadup and initial reaction to operation Barberossa. An excess of power does tend to make people do irrational things - usually with the help of numerous psychological and sociological factors relating to large, powerful autocracies - but I think its safe to say that personality as well as the irrational beliefs that both of them held contributed greatly to their actions.
Humans are certainly not 100% rational beings but the last thing we need at this stage in our development as a species is another faulty belief system to keep the wool pulled over the eyes of much of the population in regards to important social issues. Sure, some of the first academics may have been monks but I hardly think that intelligent design debate is helping kids learn more about biology. Just look at the history of the enlightenment; when reason and a mechanistic outlook on nature started to threaten Christianity as the dominant ideology of the time (at least among a certain class), the church started condemning and banning every science book in sight.
In hindsight, yeah, Nazism didn't make a whole lot of sense (people these days might say nationalism on the whole should be tossed aside, but then you have patriots who'd scream "NWO" over the idea of losing sovereignty) but back then they thought they were being scientific. Stalin must've been simply doing whatever it took to secure his power, paranoid or not. As far as secular education goes, you have a point. If they're lucky enough, people can later choose to go to whatever college they want, be it MIT or a divinity school.
When it comes to the enlightenment, the Royal Society and the 'Invisible College' might have had its roots in a Rosicicrucian Enlightenment. Frances Yates wrote about this sort of thing in many of her books. When you talk about "the church" I'm guessing you mean the Catholic Church. They''re not the only ones in history to ban books.
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When asked in an interview whether or not he thought 9/11 was an inside job Noam Chomsky said, "Even if it was, who cares".
Oh lawd. Are you a 9/11 truther David?
No. I'm not a truther. I just like the quote.
Whether the belief is scientific, pseudoscientific, or religious, a person has a right to think however they want, even if their beliefs are not justified.
I like this David guy.
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Dude, when I was talking to the lawyer he was getting so psyched. He was writing shit down as I just rambled on. "I basically want to be shoved out on a pyre and torched. We don't have to have my friends shoot flaming arrows at me as much as I want that. I don't think I know any talented archers. Basically find a way to have me set on fire in a lake and then I want there to be a 3 day party."
The dude was SO psyched and a week later he called me all bummed out, "I'm sorry sir, they said that the human body is made up of some things that could cause some serious problems with the ecosystem. I am really sorry, is there anything else that could come close?"
"No, but it's ok, just torch me and donate my shit to people who need it. Can I still get the 3 day party?"
"Yes, that's not an issue."
"Ok, awesome. We're good."
thank you for sharing that with us, i think hate gets this thread better than all of us
dont kid yourself brother, i am living the dream. but hate! knows whats up for sure.
What's funny is that while I prescribe to that Agnostic Atheism definition, I sure do love reading and learning about religions. I've read the Bible, the Qu'ran, parts of the Torah, the Baghavad Gita (sp?) and multiple other religious texts a ton of times and I think they're kinda neat, strange, little time capsules. I always see these Afghans living in absolute squalor with nothing going for them and they just believe so fucking hard in Allah, Muhammad and Ali. It fascinates me.
Some peoples faith is strong regardless of their living conditions, i find it admirable.
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I find it confusing that people are capable of believing in magical sky grandpa, but I do foolish things sometimes too.
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A belief that is not justified will have little chance in court. Take the Scopes trial, for example. It's a good one.
Nobody can DO whatever they want, but believing in whatever they want is still fair game.
I never said those people were atheists, I said they were following secular interests.
You can say they were evil men, but on the other hand they were just willing to kill and send people to die for what they believed in.
Are human beings normally rational and intelligent? Thomas Hobbes would disagree.
Who says Hitler and Stalin weren't normally rational? They were simply men with an ungodly amount of power, doing what history tells us men with that much power tend to do.
Nazism (especially the racial component) was a profoundly irrational philosophy, and Stalin was a paranoid egomaniac. Look into how he handled The leadup and initial reaction to operation Barberossa. An excess of power does tend to make people do irrational things - usually with the help of numerous psychological and sociological factors relating to large, powerful autocracies - but I think its safe to say that personality as well as the irrational beliefs that both of them held contributed greatly to their actions.
Humans are certainly not 100% rational beings but the last thing we need at this stage in our development as a species is another faulty belief system to keep the wool pulled over the eyes of much of the population in regards to important social issues. Sure, some of the first academics may have been monks but I hardly think that intelligent design debate is helping kids learn more about biology. Just look at the history of the enlightenment; when reason and a mechanistic outlook on nature started to threaten Christianity as the dominant ideology of the time (at least among a certain class), the church started condemning and banning every science book in sight.
In hindsight, yeah, Nazism didn't make a whole lot of sense but back then they thought they were being scientific. Stalin must've been simply doing whatever it took to secure his power, paranoid or not.
When it comes to the enlightenment, the Royal Society and the 'Invisible College' might have had its roots in a Rosicicrucian Enlightenment. Frances Yates wrote about this sort of thing in many of her books. When you talk about "the church" I'm guessing you mean the Catholic Church. They''re not the only ones in history to ban books.
Eeeeh, maybe the nazi racial researchers thought they were being scientific but they were mostly searching for "evidence" (much of it fictitious or heavily skewed by interpretation) to support their pre-existing beliefs, which is obviously contrary to the scientific method. It's entirely possible that they could have been doing this for a rational reason - i.e. to avoid reprisals from higher-ups which would inevitably result if they turned in research that didn't fit in with their ideology - but its likely that some of them were at least as deluded as Hitler if not more. Pseudoscience + sincere belief doesn't = real science (but you know this).
I was being a bit facetious with that "the church" comment. Religious organizations certainly contributed to the enlightenment in a very real sense but what I'm getting at is the oppositional dynamic that developed when scientific materialism began to form itself into an holistic and semi-exclusive worldview that necessarily contradicted religious dogmas. The contradictions may not have been acknowledged in these mystical, fraternal orders (such as the rosicrucians) but I'm sure there's lots of other examples of religious groups - that is, those actually concerned with tending to the flock, rather than religiously inspired secret societies - condemning and persecuting scholars who contradicted a certain aspect of their theology.
I'll have to check out some of Frances Yates books, though. I've always been interested by hermetic societies and their contributions to social and political history.
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the oppositional dynamic that developed when scientific materialism began to form itself into an holistic and semi-exclusive worldview that necessarily contradicted religious dogmas. The contradictions may not have been acknowledged in these mystical, fraternal orders (such as the rosicrucians) but I'm sure there's lots of other examples of religious groups - that is, those actually concerned with tending to the flock, rather than religiously inspired secret societies - condemning and persecuting scholars who contradicted a certain aspect of their theology.
I'll have to check out some of Frances Yates books, though. I've always been interested by hermetic societies and their contributions to social and political history.
The fact that literal (and some not so literal) interpretations of Judeo-Christian dogma became readily falsifiable is definitely at the crux of this oppositional dynamic. Sounds a bit like Hegel's historical dialectic. I think people acting in the name of science and religious institutions have "tended the flock" both successfully and unsuccessfully. It's when either one begins to feel existentially threatened (personally I don't see a need for that fear) that they begin to have an agenda seeking to thoroughly discredit and exclude the other, and thereby instilling a bias in their adherents. Although I suppose that depending on your experiences and how you grew up, chances are you might find yourself having a bias one way or another.
And it's 'Dame' Frances Yates!
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Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIadtFJYWhw#)
Carl Sagan on "God" and "gods" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E-_DdX8Ke0&NR=1&feature=fvwp#)
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afo3WT4A_K0#)
Michio Kaku on God (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi6yPJvCFU0#ws)
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions."
"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"
This meant, to Nietzsche, looking for foundations that went deeper than Christian values. He would find a basis in the "will to power" that he described as "the essence of reality."
"In Kant's terms, a good will is a will whose decisions are wholly determined by moral demands or as he often refers to this, by the Moral Law. Human beings view this Law as a constraint on their desires, and hence a will in which the Moral Law is decisive is motivated by the thought of duty. A holy or divine will, if it exists, though good, would not be good because it is motivated by thoughts of duty. A holy will would be entirely free from desires that might operate independently of morality. It is the presence of desires that could operate independently of moral demands that makes goodness in human beings a constraint, an essential element of the idea of �duty�. So in analyzing unqualified goodness as it occurs in imperfectly rational creatures such as ourselves, we are investigating the idea of being motivated by the thought that we are constrained to act in certain ways that we might not want to, or the thought that we have moral duties."
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2207/2129429784_81735e312d.jpg)
First Church of the Almighty Dollar
Stained glass in the lobby of the Standard Chartered Bank Building. Standard Chartered is one of the three banks that print Hong Kong Dollars, which they apparently consider a divine duty.
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I could same the same for atheism.
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David, could you try summing up what you're trying to say in a few sentences?
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'Religion' in its essence is just a bunch of stories, metaphors and statements meant to give you a way to live properly. Religions have come and gone - some longer than others - and will continue to do so (but hopefully we'll all smarten up and just live "as is" one day, but that day is no where close).
This is my "religion":
Love. Do your best. Eat right (vegetarian/vegan). Exercise daily (yoga). Your neighbors are not strangers but (if aren't already) should be your friends - same with that creepy guy walking down your block. Read. Enlighten yourself. Find a purpose greater than yourself.
That's the cliff's notes.
There's no point wondering if theres a god or not. If (s)he (it) does come around we'll sit down and talk with him/her/it then. End of story. I have more important things to do and think about.
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The Pale Blue Dot - Carl Sagan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnFMrNdj1yY#)
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I could same the same for atheism.
Yeah, you could, and then I would point out that most prisoners with a low education believe in a god and most educated scientists do not (there is actually a statistic about that somewhere) and that places that are more advanced in the world place less importance on religion while third world countries place more. I would say that over time, evolving minds find that they don't need a god to make sense of things. God just doesn't equal enlightenment to me, at all. Enlightenment would be more along the lines of accepting that other people believe other things, and frankly not many religious people are like that, otherwise religious debates wouldn't happen so frequently or be driven with as much emotion.
after enough thinking, you realize how full of shit people are. then you realize how full of shit you are. beliefs in things that make no sense fall by the way side.
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but guys....do all dogs really go to heaven???
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but guys....do all dogs really go to heaven???
My dog ain't going to heaven if I have anything to say about it.
Who says beliefs can't be private? Whether they're right or wrong, a person can believe in what they want.
Whether the belief is scientific, pseudoscientific, or religious, a person has a right to think however they want, even if their beliefs are not justified.
If you want to bring up issues of social harm, then I'd remind you that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and other figure heads massacred and went to war over what were largely secular interests.
Religious belief and monasticism gave rise to scholasticism in Europe.
As long as beliefs have public effects, then they're not merely a private concern.
Religious conviction (often) leads to public behavior.
So, religious belief is not merely a private concern.
Where does the argument go wrong?
Wouldn't you criticize the child molester for their beliefs?
Or would show them respect when they claim, "I know there's not good evidence that children benefit from being molested, but my belief is a matter of faith."
You're right I was being a tad fascist; German blood.
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David, could you try summing up what you're trying to say in a few sentences?
Someone said earlier that the universe is so vast and mysterious that how dare we pretend to know how it all really is. Somehow we still try, it's like the human condition or something.
Science and technology are advancing so fast that me might one day reach the Singularity. Yet it's a pity that economics, justice and politics have not advanced as much. At least not in its praxis.
Expand Quote
but guys....do all dogs really go to heaven???
My dog ain't going to heaven if I have anything to say about it.
Expand Quote
Who says beliefs can't be private? Whether they're right or wrong, a person can believe in what they want.
Whether the belief is scientific, pseudoscientific, or religious, a person has a right to think however they want, even if their beliefs are not justified.
If you want to bring up issues of social harm, then I'd remind you that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and other figure heads massacred and went to war over what were largely secular interests.
Religious belief and monasticism gave rise to scholasticism in Europe.
As long as beliefs have public effects, then they're not merely a private concern.
Religious conviction (often) leads to public behavior.
So, religious belief is not merely a private concern.
Where does the argument go wrong?
Wouldn't you criticize the child molester for their beliefs?
Or would show them respect when they claim, "I know there's not good evidence that children benefit from being molested, but my belief is a matter of faith."
You're right I was being a tad fascist; German blood.
Don Bluth?
All Dogs Go to Heaven - You Can't Keep a Good Dog Down (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLbVI44FA6Q#)
I dont know what's wrong with you, but I have the freedom to dream up whatever crazy religion I want in my own head and there's nothing you or anyone in this world could ever do about it. I dont know where you got child molesters from.
Oh, so you're German. Does that mean you're entitled to some free Becks?
(http://www.rodale.com/files/images/speech.preview.jpg)
See those two giant things flanking either side of the flag? Any idea what they're called?
You can criticize someone for their belief, but if their belief is private then what's to stop them from having it? Are you espousing some thoughtcrime law against religious belief?
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Expand Quote
David, could you try summing up what you're trying to say in a few sentences?
Someone said earlier that the universe is so vast and mysterious that how dare we pretend to know how it all really is? Somehow we still try, it's like the human condition or something.
Science and technology are advancing so fast that me might one day reach the Singularity. Yet it's a pity that economics, justice and politics have not advanced as much. At least not in its praxis.
Expand Quote
Expand Quote
but guys....do all dogs really go to heaven???
My dog ain't going to heaven if I have anything to say about it.
Expand Quote
Who says beliefs can't be private? Whether they're right or wrong, a person can believe in what they want.
Whether the belief is scientific, pseudoscientific, or religious, a person has a right to think however they want, even if their beliefs are not justified.
If you want to bring up issues of social harm, then I'd remind you that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and other figure heads massacred and went to war over what were largely secular interests.
Religious belief and monasticism gave rise to scholasticism in Europe.
As long as beliefs have public effects, then they're not merely a private concern.
Religious conviction (often) leads to public behavior.
So, religious belief is not merely a private concern.
Where does the argument go wrong?
Wouldn't you criticize the child molester for their beliefs?
Or would show them respect when they claim, "I know there's not good evidence that children benefit from being molested, but my belief is a matter of faith."
You're right I was being a tad fascist; German blood.
Don Bluth?
All Dogs Go to Heaven - You Can't Keep a Good Dog Down (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLbVI44FA6Q#)
I dont know what's wrong with you, but I have the freedom to dream up whatever crazy religion I want in my own head and there's nothing you or anyone in this world could ever do about it. I dont know where you got child molesters from.
Oh, so you're German. Does that mean you're entitled to some free Becks?
(http://www.rodale.com/files/images/speech.preview.jpg)
See those two giant things flanking either side of the flag? Any idea what they're called?
You can criticize someone for their belief, but if their belief is private then what's to stop them from having it? Are you espousing some thoughtcrime law against religious belief?
is it...fascistas? or something...my 9th grade teacher told me some shit about them. what do i get if i'm right?
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fascios or fasci. they've been a symbol of power since ancient rome. britain's parliament has them too. it's just a symbol.
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'bundle of sticks'
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Does anyone understand what the fuck David's points are? Dude seems to be talking in circles and constantly being ambiguous.
We can't understand you when you're talking with your head up your ass, dude.
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"I dont know if the stars rule the world...
....To believe in some other sun,
One that shines even at night,
Some profound incandescence of things,
Surpassing my understanding..."
The Sun v.s VY Canis Majoris (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIdA83AKRX8&feature=player_embedded#)
Size of Galaxies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HVb4YRsDIg&feature=related#ws)
Deists, including some of the framers of the constitution, said that they saw god as a clockmaker who set the clock then stood back as it unwound, without interfering.
This is more or less a mechanistic view of the world. Calvinism and predestination say that our destiny is already preset and we have little say in the outcome of our fate. Even physics can lead us to believe that free will is still up in the air. It's not so much the idea of a "magical sky grandpa" that I think about, but rather the principles and concepts that come up when one trys to think about the infinite. Is there anything inherently benevolent about life and this existence or are these only qualitative abstractions resulting from our own chemical reactions and brain synapses? Maybe the idea of a higher power is a coping mechanism left over from a primitive, prescientific era that lingers and is still projected onto the universe.
Then again there is the Selknam tribe from South America. Their beliefs denied the existence of any gods or supreme being and they taught this belief to initiates in their rituals and ceremonies. They'd dress up as spirits and frighten the inititiates, then later reveal that these spirits were only men.
(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1019/1159223118_769b245300.jpg)
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/niallcorbet/1159219116/)
(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1238/1158365117_89a64a75e1.jpg)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selknam_people#Religion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selknam_people#Religion))
Maybe it just boils down to an ontological question, and the questions that come up when we think about the nature of being. Whether one subscribes to an atheistic ontology or not, some of the same issues begin to surface. Maybe in the future we'll have a more holistic way to think about these questions.
Like other people have already mentioned, regardless of what we think about the universe, a basic factor is simply the way we treat others. One fact that still remains is that there's a hell of a lot of suffering in this world. So do different beliefs and worldviews really affect the way that that problem is addressed?
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Like other people have already mentioned, regardless of what we think about the universe, a basic factor is simply the way we treat others. ? One fact that still remains is that there's a hell of a lot of suffering in this world. So do different beliefs and worldviews really affect the way that that problem is addressed?
When people "believe" something, they aren't adressing problems at all. They are providing distractions for themselves.
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"I dont know if the stars rule the world...
....To believe in some other sun,
One that shines even at night,
Some profound incandescence of things,
Surpassing my understanding..."
The Sun v.s VY Canis Majoris (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIdA83AKRX8&feature=player_embedded#)
Size of Galaxies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HVb4YRsDIg&feature=related#ws)
Deists, including some of the framers of the constitution, said that they saw god as a clockmaker who set the clock then stood back as it unwound, without interfering.
(http://www.thecontrarianmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/dr-manhattan_ljpg.jpeg)
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Expand Quote
Like other people have already mentioned, regardless of what we think about the universe, a basic factor is simply the way we treat others. ? One fact that still remains is that there's a hell of a lot of suffering in this world. So do different beliefs and worldviews really affect the way that that problem is addressed?
When people "believe" something, they aren't adressing problems at all. They are providing distractions for themselves.
Environmentalists have their beliefs, and those beliefs address certain problems.
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Like other people have already mentioned, regardless of what we think about the universe, a basic factor is simply the way we treat others. ?? One fact that still remains is that there's a hell of a lot of suffering in this world. So do different beliefs and worldviews really affect the way that that problem is addressed?
When people "believe" something, they aren't adressing problems at all. They are providing distractions for themselves.
Environmentalists have their beliefs, and those beliefs address certain problems.
Give me an example.
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A person could believe in global warming. Or animal rights
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agnostic was coined by t.h. huxley to mean, without knowledge of things unknowable. to say you are an agnostic is the same as saying you are an atheist. either way, you are saying that you can not know that there is a god. now, there are different forms of this belief. some say they are agnostic in the sense that they are not sure, now, they might want to believe that they are not atheists, but they are de facto atheists. the reason, they do not believe in a god. if you do believe there is a god, you can not be an agnostic, because by definition, to be agnostic is to claim that you can not know if there is a god. with that, claiming that you know there are things such as god, or a spirit, or a spiritual world, is dumb.
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So, you probably don't lend much creedence to the more intangible things in life, I'm guessing. And you also turn your head away from the numinous or spiritual, obviously.
Below is an article about phenomena surrounding near-death-experiences. Whether you accept the story or not, people would argue that some of the issues in it raise questions that are usually relegated to the realm of the supernatural; that there is some kind of 'beyond', or some possibility of an extradimensional reality.
"...a small but increasing number of scientists posit that consciousness is related to, but not dependent on, the material brain."
"How...could she know these things?
'She could not have heard [it], because of what they did to her ears,' he says. 'In addition, both of her eyes were taped shut, so she couldn't open her eyes and see what was going on. So her physical sensory perception was off the table."
"Is there some type of awareness that occurs from a nonfunctional, physical brain?"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104397005 (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104397005)
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on a sidenote:
For a purely materialistic explanation concerning out of body experiences, there's this nytimes article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/health/psychology/03shad.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/health/psychology/03shad.html)