drugs and prostitution

[Mikenhe]

being touched by his noodly Appendage is the way forward.

 

 

 

Seriously - if there is a diety - can you prove that it isn't the flying spaghetti monster?

[Guest]

Liberty, perhaps you missed it but I did say why Christ is more likely then the other deities.

 

I know of no other deities with multiple, ancient other sources (outside the respective holy texts) that discuss either the deity or other direct people within the story. Do you? What scholarship have you read about the other non-biblical sources of Christ and his followers? If you can provide a link of one of Odin's followers and scientists saying "this is probably his followers tomb." I'll give it more credence.

 

No, Mikenhe, I can't "prove" that the deity isn't the FSM. However, the God of Abraham (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) seems to have a done a bit better job on getting His word out to the world. ;)

 

I think you can tell about one's heart (and sincerity in search) for his or her zeal of research. If one never looks into both sides with a sincere heart, how can that person really say they've explored both sides (theism vs atheism)?

 

One conclusion I've come to is this: you can believe or disbelieve for a variety of valid reasons. One things is for sure though. Life, itself, has the ability to be much more meaningful with God in the equation than without.

[Liberty]

One conclusion I've come to is this: you can believe or disbelieve for a variety of valid reasons. One things is for sure though. Life, itself, has the ability to be much more meaningful with God Santa Claus in the equation than without.

 

FTFY.

[Guest]

I'm saying that you believe what you want to believe. In fact, we all do. However, I've research both sides extensively. I can't say that many other people have.

 

Plenty of people (probably) smarter than on this board believe in God. I believe in God because I think we have free will to do right and wrong - objectively so. I believe (perhaps wrongly) that determinism is false. Personally, a big part of me would like to be an unbeliever. There is something "fun" about doing whatever I want. However, I can't feel that way. I think taking advantage of people is "wrong." I think being selfish is "wrong" as is misleading people, etc. None of these are "wrong" though if God doesn't exist. Simply one set of instincts vs another.

 

And yes, for what it's worth, my investments have done quite well. I'm not balling like Eric, but I'm doing alright. ;)

 

 

[Liberty]

I'm saying that you believe what you want to believe. In fact, we all do.

 

Wow, if you have that ability, good for you.

 

Personally, I can't believe things that I don't think are true, and my standard of evidence is higher than "I wish things were this way", "I've read something eloquent about it" and "some smart people think that way" (how about all the smart people who don't think your way, uh? Can't you use selective appeal to authority to justify almost anything without evidence?). I can't decide to believe in the supernatural when all evidence points against it anymore than I can just decide to believe in alien abductions or young earth creationism.

 

The day that there's solid evidence for it, I'll totally change my mind, because I want to believe in what's real. But without any evidence, no reason to.

 

Personally, a big part of me would like to be an unbeliever. There is something "fun" about doing whatever I want.  I think taking advantage of people is "wrong." I think being selfish is "wrong" as is misleading people, etc. None of these are "wrong" though if God doesn't exist.

 

You really don't get it, uh? It's not because someone doesn't believe in magic (which is basically what religion is) that they can suddenly do anything without being constrained by a conscience and morals...  You must have been quite the psychopath when you were an agnostic or an atheist or whatever you called yourself, if you really think that without a big security camera in the sky it's a free for all and nothing matters. It matters to people, that's who it matters to, and through empathy we can know how it feels to wrong others. It's empirically true that there's a very large segment of the population that labels itself "non-religious" and they aren't any worse than the rest  (about 1/5 in the US; "The study also found that "[t]hey tend to be more educated, more affluent [..] than those with active faith"), and there's a large portion of those officially counted as religious who just label themselves that way out of cultural inertia but they never pray, never read religious texts, never go to church, they are basically non-religious, yet they aren't amoral sociopaths. Your theories don't match reality that way either.

[Guest]

Liberty, let's be clear. The supernatural does exist.

 

In fact, let's look up the definition (Merriam Webster) for this:

 

of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe;

 

a ) departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature

 

b) attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)

 

Or, if you'd prefer, the google definition:

 

(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature

 

So, please tell me, where did the matter from the Bing Bang come from? What set off the Big Bang? What existed before the universe? Aren't these "beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature" or "transcends the laws of nature" as far as we know? If not, can you please give me the answer?

 

There is plenty of evidence but you choose to ignore it (fine tuning argument, desire, etc). Through several hundred years of scientific advancement, we are still really no closer than we were 2000 years ago about what caused us to be here. Sure, we know a bit more about evolution and the growth of the universe but we don't know what caused it in the first place. In fact, from what I've read, the big bang idea came from Georges Lemaître  a priest.

 

Faith plays an integral part whether you are an atheist or a theist. If you are an atheist, you have "faith" the universe works in a certain way...though we still don't know what dark matter really is (and we think it's 85% or so of everything!). If you're a theist, you have "faith" that God is in control.

 

Keep in mind that I'm all for scientific advancement. However, we should still be humble enough to realize that there are plenty of things we have no idea how it functions. Your idea for evidence is something test in a lab. I'd imagine God is bit bigger than a lab test. One could argue that you can't even trust the laws of physics if there isn't a law giver. They just happen to exist and could change at anytime (since it's all random anyway).

 

I never said that the non-religious are worse than the religious. In fact, I stated just the opposite earlier. When I was agnostic I lived a more "moral" life than most religious people I know. What I've realized though, as I said before, is once you realize the empathy you feel isn't something more than it is (simply a chemical reaction) you can choose to ignore it if it fits you ultimate desire (to have more money, let's say).

 

I simply mean that "goodness" doesn't exist without a deity. It is simply, and only, an action that creates a chemical reaction in one's mind. If a machine did the same thing, as far as atheism is concerned, they are both on equal ground - creating a chemical reaction. If murder created the same chemical reaction as charity - they are the same level of "goodness."

 

If one does something that is "good" even when no one is looking it is a total waste of time - especially when one realizes the good deed is simply a rush of chemicals. That's why I find it a bit funny (and illogical if one actually thinks through their position) when humanist groups say you can "Be good without God." No, you really can't. You can have the illusion of goodness, but something beyond that is just wishful thinking.

 

As far as affluent people go, I think the religious folks have you guys beat out by a guy that swings the averages a bit:

 

http://valuesandcapitalism.com/the-men-who-built-america-john-d-rockefeller-s-faith/

 

[Liberty]

I'm sorry, it's like we're not even speaking the same language. You can't even understand a word's definition. According to you, the Higgs Boson was supernatural until recently. I'm out.

[Guest]

I'm sorry, it's like we're not even speaking the same language. You can't even understand a word's definition. According to you, the Higgs Boson was supernatural until recently. I'm out.

 

There was a theoretical model for the Higgs Boson. Care to explain the theoretical model on the big bang? Care to explain how my reasoning is off base in regards to empathy? I have the internal honesty to realize what reality is if atheism is the accurate world view.

[PatientCheetah]

Why can't we just be happy with the fact that certain things are unknowable? Theories, including religions, are created to explain phenomena to the best of our abilities. With each iterations, improved theories take us closer to the ultimate truth but they are still approximations.

[Liberty]

Here it is: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

 

But even if we knew nothing about it, it would have nothing to do with a god until we found evidence for it in that research. Evidence of a god is about god. Lack of evidence about something is just evidence of lack of evidence about that thing. Logic 101, no? But even when we do figure it out fully, people like you will say that it has nothing to do with god anyway, just like how when we figured biology out, people who said that the mystery of life (elan vital) was the proof of god just switched to something else. And when we showed that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe, making our planet not so special (even the sun isn't special -- there's a zillion just like it), people switched to other things... When we showed that thinking is taking place inside the brain, not in an out-of-body soul, people switched... In quantum mechanics we do have sub-particles appearing out of nothing just from energy and moving backwards and forward in time. It's very natural and quite well understood by physics, even if weird to our intuition. Big bang can be weird too and still entirely natural, without higher intelligence involved (in fact, it's much weirder if there's an agent involved because you then have to explain that agent). The god of the gaps argument just pretends that any thing still unknown is proof of something specific, while in fact all it means is "we don't know yet", just like all the previous "we don't know yet" that have since been elucidated without finding a ghost in the machine. In fact, logic would tell us that if the religious view was accurate, the more we'd learn about the universe, the more we'd confirm it, but instead it's exactly the opposite that has been happening with all the old arguments falling one by one.

 

Fine tuning argument was always weak on many levels, and even moreso since we've realized that planets are a lot more common than we thought just a few years ago:

 

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.ca/2012/07/problems-with-fine-tuning-argument.html

 

I so feel like this now:

 

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

[alwaysinvert]

Atheism isn't a worldview no matter how many times you say it. It's the lack of a specific one - namely belief in a deity. It doesn't come with any other strings attached.

 

You can believe in supernatural phenomena and be an atheist. You can believe in objective good and evil as well. There are numerous philosophical systems that do argue for exactly that without a deity. But I guess you have read CS Lewis and watched televangelists talk about spontaneous healing, so you are probably more qualified than Kant.

 

I mean, it's fine if you want to believe in whatever. It's also fine if you want to discuss what you believe. What's not fine is spouting illogical nonsense and strawmanning all over the place. Your feeling that there can't be good and evil if there is no god has no bearing whatsoever on anything but your own thoughts.

 

And your line of reasoning is still not an argument for the existence of a deity, it's at best a weak argument for why you should have faith (notwithstanding if there is a god or not). If we were to take your claim that you can't know good from bad without a god at face value, it still says nothing about the likelihood of there being a god.

[Borgesian]

I'm sorry, it's like we're not even speaking the same language. You can't even understand a word's definition. According to you, the Higgs Boson was supernatural until recently. I'm out.

 

There was a theoretical model for the Higgs Boson. Care to explain the theoretical model on the big bang? Care to explain how my reasoning is off base in regards to empathy? I have the internal honesty to realize what reality is if atheism is the accurate world view.

 

200 years ago we didn't even know about atoms, go back further and people thought the world was flat. I guess we should have just thrown in the towel on all these things because we didn't understand them at the time. Incase you didn't know that's how science works, we come up with models and theories, test them out and if they hold we update our understanding, if they don't then we throw them out.

[Guest]

Liberty, I agree with you that if a certain religion is accurate, the holy text would tend confirm what we know about science.

 

I'll have to read the fine tuning argument in more detail. However, you comparing Higgs and the big bang is a bit insincere. One had a model and one didn't. However, like I stated before the supernatural does exist. I think all too often, in our bias, we automatically find "supernatural" as false but that's incredibly misleading.

 

By the way, here is a piece of the article you posted:

 

"Inflation has led to many people rescinding claims of constants and certain figures (omega) necessitating fine-tuning. This also supports multiverses. The notion of multiverse can easily allow for life permission. Other constants have also been shown to vary within our own universe. Cyclic universes also allow for different constants"

 

Hmmm...there is no evidence for a multiverse yet either (unless something popped up over the past year or so).

 

I hope you'll at least read Mere Christianity.

 

invert, atheism doesn't come with any strings attached, really? Don't you assume that everything has a natural answer? Don't you assume that certain laws are constant? I fail to see how those aren't "strings."

 

I agree that you shouldn't base things on feelings. However, we do that every single day. All of us do.

 

And, if objective morality exists without a deity, please explain how. How does one define a stranger's "value" in the universe if they die and it has no affect on you? After all, our own knowledge of existence is only what we experience in our minds. That's how we assign "value" to certain things. If something has no effect, I fail to see how it has value.

 

Or, how does objective morality exist if this is true? Our actions cause us to feel a chemical concoction of "goodness." If a machine or a pill caused the same "goodness" reaction as murder as to charity, does that mean murder is "objectively" good?

 

I agree this doesn't "prove" a deity's existence. However, I think it's a fairly good argument that we shouldn't be slaves to our emotions if no deity exists. Because, after all, it's just a chemical reaction. Our brains are plenty strong enough to rationalize our "evil" deeds.

 

Lorenzo, perhaps you didn't read my previous post fully. Liberty tired comparing the higgs as a supernatural event (in aforementioned definitions that I posted) until it was discovered. A supernatural event is something that exists beyond the understanding of science. The higgs had a model and it was proven accurate. I've yet seen a model for the big bang yet (so, according to the definition, it exists outside the understanding of science).

 

[kirkomi]

And, if objective morality exists without a deity, please explain how. How does one define a stranger's "value" in the universe if they die and it has no affect on you? After all, our own knowledge of existence is only what we experience in our minds. That's how we assign "value" to certain things. If something has no effect, I fail to see how it has value.

 

Or, how does objective morality exist if this is true? Our actions cause us to feel a chemical concoction of "goodness." If a machine or a pill caused the same "goodness" reaction as murder as to charity, does that mean murder is "objectively" good?

 

I agree this doesn't "prove" a deity's existence. However, I think it's a fairly good argument that we shouldn't be slaves to our emotions if no deity exists. Because, after all, it's just a chemical reaction. Our brains are plenty strong enough to rationalize our "evil" deeds.

 

These are all good questions and very smart people have grappled with it. An excellent set of lectures can be found here.

 

http://www.justiceharvard.org/

 

The beauty of evidence based reasoning is that you come up with ways to explain the world around you. It will be great to come up with a theory of morality without religion. And several people do have such theories. Some of these you can find if you look for "secular morality". For example, it answers the questions you raised i.e., if someone feels good committing a murder, is that objectively "good" ? If you cheat on your wife and you are both happier because of it, is it moral to do so if she never finds out ? Is it moral to eat a person to save the life of five others in dire conditions ? Is it ok for a doctor to save the life of five sick patients by harvesting organs from one healthy one ?

 

You will not find the answers to these question on a message board. I can try but it will be fruitless. The only way would be to read the people who have put in the necessary amount of time and effort to flesh out the intricacies of the issue and then use your own grey cells.

 

Instead of trying to convince other people to read "the bible" or "christianity", your time will be well spent on reading evidence based literature. I sure as hell don't trust a book which claims that it is the word of god -- the all powerful and is true because of that very reason. That is a logical fallacy right there.

[Liberty]

Liberty, I agree with you that if a certain religion is accurate, the holy text would tend confirm what we know about science.

 

So why doesn't it?

 

I'll have to read the fine tuning argument in more detail. However, you comparing Higgs and the big bang is a bit insincere. One had a model and one didn't. However, like I stated before the supernatural does exist. I think all too often, in our bias, we automatically find "supernatural" as false but that's incredibly misleading.

 

We're fine tuned for the universe because we evolved in it, the universe isn't fine tuned for us. Religious people assume that humans couldn't have been otherwise, so earth must be made for us. But evolution has shown us that we could be different. If the universe was different, we'd be different, or we wouldn't exist. But since we do exist, it's the anthropic principle (we're here talking about it, so obviously we're in a universe where we can exist). There are an almost infinity of different stars and planets. What are the chances that none of them, over billions of years, had what happened on Earth happen? It would be more surprising to have no life anywhere (in fact, maybe life is common among galaxies, we just don't know, it's not like we've explored much of the universe)... So not so fine tuned...

 

Supernatural doesn't mean "hasn't been explained by science yet", it means "can't be explained by science". The prefix "super" means that it's above the natural world, out of it.

 

I don't understand what you mean about the Higgs Boson having a model. At some point no model for it existed. So? We must not confuse the map and the territory. At some point no model for the big bang existed either, and then we had a theoretical model for it, and then we found background microwave remains of the big bang (we have evidence for it, just like the Higgs Boson). There are other undiscovered things that we don't have a model for right now, and someday we'll have a model. Doesn't make them magic or evidence for anything. Just not yet known.

[merkhet]

Keep going guys. I feel like we are only five or six posts (tops) away from definitively proving or disproving the existence of an Almighty.

[Mikenhe]

Keep going guys. I feel like we are only five or six posts (tops) away from definitively proving or disproving the existence of an Almighty.

 

;D

 

So is a deity a value investment??

[Liberty]

Keep going guys. I feel like we are only five or six posts (tops) away from definitively proving or disproving the existence of an Almighty.

 

I don't think that's the real issue. Religious people have no solid evidence, and the burden of proof is on them. To me it's about how to think, which is a more interesting and broadly applicable thing.

 

If people used even just the standard of evidence required to build a bridge to their beliefs about the universe, the world would be very different. But people are brought up to believe that religion is a kind of separate thing, and the normal rules of thinking shouldn't apply to it, which is BS. Virgins births and drinking some dude's blood in transmutated wine? Don't ask.

[merkhet]

Keep going guys. I feel like we are only five or six posts (tops) away from definitively proving or disproving the existence of an Almighty.

 

I don't think that's the real issue. Religious people have no solid evidence, and the burden of proof is on them. To me it's about how to think, which is a more interesting and broadly applicable thing.

 

If people used even just the standard of evidence required to build a bridge to their beliefs about the universe, the world would be very different. But people are brought up to believe that religion is a kind of separate thing, and the normal rules of thinking shouldn't apply to it, which is BS. Virgins births and drinking some dude's blood in transmutated wine? Don't ask.

 

I'll phrase it another way -- assume you are talking to someone who is rather religious -- in that they believe the things that you laid forth above.

 

How likely do you think it is for you to "logic" them out of that belief? The following article comes to mind...

 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/31/sacred-and-profane-4

[Liberty]

I'll phrase it another way -- assume you are talking to someone who is rather religious -- in that they believe the things that you laid forth above.

 

How likely do you think it is for you to "logic" them out of that belief? The following article comes to mind...

 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/31/sacred-and-profane-4

 

Oh, I'm not really expecting a real-time conversion to happen. I've been around the block enough to know that.

 

It's more a weakness of mine. I have a hard time extirpating myself from these discussions, probably because I like thinking about thinking and feel there are probably at least a couple of lurkers out there who get something out of these discussions (might not have been exposed to some of these ideas before, etc).

 

I know it's not very productive, but it's like a train wreck, I can't look away  :-\

[bizaro86]

Keep going guys. I feel like we are only five or six posts (tops) away from definitively proving or disproving the existence of an Almighty.

 

;D

 

So is a deity a value investment??

 

Since belief doesn't cost anything in and of itself, and has the potential for significant intrapersonal/emotional value, you could make that case.

 

Of course, disbelief doesn't cost anything either, and people seem to be just as passionate about that...

 

Actually, this discussion reminds me of two things that I'd never associated with value investing, but seem apropos:

 

1) The sunday school definition of grace: "God giving me a free gift I don't deserve"

referenced from Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace you are saved through faith, not of yourselves, it is a gift from God"

 

I love free stuff.

 

2) The classical upside/downside argument for belief in God, which is a decision tree with two branches. If there is the existence of God, and I believe in him, then I receive the supernatural rewards of that belief. If I don't, then I don't receive those rewards. However if there is no God, then belief in God doesn't appear to have harm, as we would all be lifeless and decomposing in the absence of an afterlife.

 

It sort of feels like a call option to me, with a very low premium. No cost, but potential significant upside. Not much downside either. Might be mispriced.

 

 

[bizaro86]

Of course, the burden of proof discussion above is a reasonable point. To prove the existance a diety is something nobody has been able to do, and of course it is essentially impossible to disprove the existance of something. (That's the black swan problem, just because you/nobody has seen one doesn't mean they don't exist).

 

Proof is actually something that I don't find very interesting. Decisions made in an uncertain environment are much more interesting. Rationale inferences made from incomplete information are one of the foundations of investing (if you had perfect information about the future a margin of safety wouldn't be required, and the market would be efficient).

[Liberty]

I don't believe for a minute that anyone can either prove or disprove the existence of a higher power. You can reject all religion and totally embrace atheism but in the end you are as ignorant as the rest of us. You may be correct but you cannot prove it.

 

You can place the burden of truth wherever you like for yourself. But burden of proof isn't some sacred law of the universe, it’s just a generally accepted practice in debate that you are using to argue that atheism should be the default unless proven otherwise.

 

This isn't a debate that can be won. I know it rankles many people both religious and otherwise. I think the best any of us can do is go with what works for you and respect the right of others to have their own belief systems so long as it does not infringe on your rights to live and believe as you choose.

 

I agree with your last statement as well, this is like a train wreck for me too and even though I keep telling myself to ignore this thread I read it anyways.

 

I think that what you are saying is incorrect. The burden of proof I'm talking about isn't some legal or traditional thing just for the sake of it. I'm talking about the logical burden of proof; if you claim something, it's not up to others to disprove it.

 

If I claim that I can read minds, or that I can fly, is it up to you to come up with evidence that I can't?

 

Of course not.

 

Atheists don't have to prove that god doesn't exist. They're just saying that they have found no reason to believe in any particular god (zeus, odin, thor, the christian god, etc).

 

There's a lot of things that you don't believe in that nobody has proven don't exist, no? You just have never seen anything that convinced you (and I don't just mean seen with your own eyes, I'm talking about the broader meaning, including research and experiments by others). I'm sure you're an atheist about most of the gods that have ever been claimed to exist for that very reason, yet there's no conclusive proof that apollo and vishnu don't exist.

[Liberty]

Since belief doesn't cost anything in and of itself, and has the potential for significant intrapersonal/emotional value, you could make that case.

 

Of course, disbelief doesn't cost anything either, and people seem to be just as passionate about that...

 

There are definitely costs.

 

If reality is a certain way but your mental model of reality doesn't match it (nothing is 100% perfect, but you can be closer or farther away), you won't be thinking as effectively as you would if you had a more accurate map of the territory. Since all your choices and actions are derived from how you think, your whole life is changed. Religion has a cost, because if you really believe, you have to do and think what whatever religion you follow tells you to do, things you might not do otherwise. People who pray for a cure instead of going to the hospital might be dying because of their religion, for example. I, for one, am glad that engineers follow the laws of physics when designing something rather than leave it up to god to make it work (Inshallah, as the devout muslims say).

 

A religion that imposes not costs whatsoever (even if just in time and energy) on the follower is basically the same as no religion at all. Unless it's just a custom made up religion where the person just says that god wants whatever they want, which is another kind of problem... You can't have your cake and eat it too.

[Dustin T]

I don't believe for a minute that anyone can either prove or disprove the existence of a higher power. You can reject all religion and totally embrace atheism but in the end you are as ignorant as the rest of us. You may be correct but you cannot prove it.

 

You can place the burden of truth wherever you like for yourself. But burden of proof isn't some sacred law of the universe, it’s just a generally accepted practice in debate that you are using to argue that atheism should be the default unless proven otherwise.

 

This isn't a debate that can be won. I know it rankles many people both religious and otherwise. I think the best any of us can do is go with what works for you and respect the right of others to have their own belief systems so long as it does not infringe on your rights to live and believe as you choose.

 

I agree with your last statement as well, this is like a train wreck for me too and even though I keep telling myself to ignore this thread I read it anyways.

 

I think that what you are saying is incorrect. The burden of proof I'm talking about isn't some legal or traditional thing just for the sake of it. I'm talking about the logical burden of proof; if you claim something, it's not up to others to disprove it.

 

If I claim that I can read minds, or that I can fly, is it up to you to come up with evidence that I can't?

 

Of course not.

 

Atheists don't have to prove that god doesn't exist. They're just saying that they have no reason to believe in any particular god (zeus, odin, thor, the christian god, etc).

 

There's a lot of things that you don't believe in that nobody has proven don't exist, no? You just have never seen anything  (and I don't just mean seen with your own eyes, but including research by others) that convinced you. I'm sure you're an atheist about most of the gods that have ever been claimed to exist for that very reason, yet there's no conclusive proof that apollo and vishnu don't exist.

 

I agree that if I want to convince you then the burden of proof is on me. Just as I would assert that if you want to insist to me that you know definitively there is no higher power then the burden of proof would be on you.

 

I profess my ignorance from the rooftops. I strongly suspect that there is more to this existence then any of us are aware and I choose to live my life as such. I don't seek to convince you, I do hope to keep your mind open to the possiblity of something more, however unlikely it strikes you.