Know your audience

Then why does the scientific community believe in global warming? It cannot be proved, they believe that it is fact through general consensus.

Dechipher wrote:I just said, you can't blithely disregard people's feelings, stating that they are complete morons. People don't "feel" about luck, they think about it.

In the world of scientific and objective thought, "feelings" have no place. Only experimental observation is meaningful. Many people have far too much confidence in the human mind.

^^^Yet science does not completely understand it.

One scientific theory says that it's impossible for anything to understand how itself works, i.e the human brain can never understand itself.

To quote one of my favorite authors: "There is one theory stating that if people ever actually figure out the meaning of life and how everything works, it will instantly dissapear, and be replaced by somthing infinitly more bizzare.

There is another theory stating this has already happened."

^^^What's your point?

Geez, I'm away for a couple of days, and I miss out on all of this?
I'm gonna pick and choose a few things to respond to. I haven't got all day here.

Amaster42 wrote:How about the Big Bang? There's almost no rational explentaion for how that could have come about, yet almost all scientists accept it.

phattonez wrote:Then why does the scientific community believe in global warming? It cannot be proved, they believe that it is fact through general consensus.

Dechipher wrote:You are arguing against specific beliefs of religion, namely Christianity, rather than the idea of a higher being. This is why I feel that atheism is flawed. No matter how hard you try, you can never prove that a higher being does not exist. There is absolutely nothing you can do to prove that. Therefore no intelligent, thinking person can say "There is no God" and have any credibility. You can believe that all you want, but that doesn't make it true. Just like with religion.

AGN would be so boring without my inflammitory and uncompromising rants.

I guess you saw through my plan to point out none of my points were really addressed by anything but an ad hominem attack thus outing you as a troll. 😡

The bottom line, Atma, is that you believe in magical faries and wizards and so forgive me if I don't take your arguments seriously.

If you can convince me that your magical beings are real, then I'll hear you out, but until then you can just forward your lengthy attempts at showing how being a non-insane person is "close minded" to the flying spaghetti monster.

Saffith wrote:Gravity hasn't been proven, either, you know. Science doesn't do proof.

phattonez wrote:Then why am I being told that I need to prove that God exists?

The theory of gravity may not have a formal proof, but it is based on an insanely huge pile of observable evidence. You don't understand science. A theory can be disproven at any moment if it is ever observed to contradict reality. However, accepted theories have been tested thousands upon thousands of times under strict observation of highly trained scientists.

Not only can you not prove a god exists, you can't even provide one single instance of observable, testable evidence.

Beldaran wrote:
Not only can you not prove a god exists, you can't even provide one single instance of observable, testable evidence.

Far be it for me to say everyone here is a moron. Christians or the worst of them all. Don't even get me started on others. If you really beleave in something beleave in it. Don't try to thow it down on people. Any group that whats money is a rip off. Why do you really need them to help you? Can't you even read on your own. understaining it is easy. The USA is the beast that it speacks of. We have forurced our selfs on soo maey others it an't funny. So keep this fight going you will just make it a lot worst try to prove you points. I bet 99% of you are port of a group that thinks one thing and thats it. No one here is really thinking 100% on there own. You where told it at one time or other. The thing is it got stuck in there so now you call it you own! this kind of thing sould never even come up. beleave what you will keep others out of it. unless they ask ya.

So, Athists have persecuted the church in communist countries for years now, and will very likely continue to do so. I blame human nature more so then religion, or lack there of. I beleve in both Christ and Science, and don't see how they are incompatable apart for from people on both sides of the argument wanting them to be.

Dechipher wrote:You can't argue religion on scientific terms because they are two separate concepts. You have to argue religion on religious terms.

Oh I completely agree. Unfortunately for religion, scientific terms are the only terms under which anything can be rational. Anything non-scientific is nonsense. A belief in god is as precisely reasonable as a belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Believing in "god" is absolutely no different from beleiving in ghosts, voodoo, luck, Zeus, Thor, or imaginary friends. People who believe these ideas have a damaged rational faculty. Worse, the condition is designed to spread itself from host to host. Religious people feel cosmically driven to infect others with their crippled logic and world of magic and fairy tales.

And atheistic communist oppression was guilty of the same evil as religion, because they merely supplanted "the state" for "god". It was the same self-sacrificing delusion under which individuals were expected to surrender their intellect and will to a higher concept which is completely bogus. The communists believed in god just like you do, and their god was the empire.

Anything non-scientific is nonsense

Interesting....

I love my parents, however love can't be proven or tested by science, so my love of my family is nonsense. Huh, interesting.

Amaster42 wrote:Interesting....

I love my parents, however love can't be proven or tested by science, so my love of my family is nonsense. Huh, interesting.

Your love for your family can be explained in terms of the sciences of psychology, genetics, and biology.

Now if your family was invisible and you believed they created the universe, then yes your love would be nonsense.

Beldaran wrote:Oh I completely agree. Unfortunately for religion, scientific terms are the only terms under which anything can be rational. Anything non-scientific is nonsense. A belief in god is as precisely reasonable as a belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Believing in "god" is absolutely no different from beleiving in ghosts, voodoo, luck, Zeus, Thor, or imaginary friends. People who believe these ideas have a damaged rational faculty. Worse, the condition is designed to spread itself from host to host. Religious people feel cosmically driven to infect others with their crippled logic and world of magic and fairy tales.

And atheistic communist oppression was guilty of the same evil as religion, because they merely supplanted "the state" for "god". It was the same self-sacrificing delusion under which individuals were expected to surrender their intellect and will to a higher concept which is completely bogus. The communists believed in god just like you do, and their god was the empire.

My point is merely that just because people do put some faith into religion doesn't automatically exclude them from having any kind of intelligence whatsoever, which from your posts you appear to believe. I personally don't believe anything. Religion is too big of a thing for me to just say "No. That's totally wrong." But I certainly can't say it's right either.

The problem here is with someone's beliefs. Beldaran thinks that he is right, and I think I am right. It is the only thing that makes sense, so that is all we can see. The only difference though is that I am not mocking science (because I believe that science and religion can come together), but Beldaran is calling me a fool for what I believe.

Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo all believed in a God. It doesn't make you un-intelligent. It doesn't corrupt your ability to reason through problems in front of you.

However, they believed in God because they lived in a culture where Religion had a stranglehold on all thought. They made the discoveries in spite of the religion that surrounded them, and never because of it.

An otherwise rational person can believe in god, but that doesn't make a belief in god a rational act. I used to believe in god. I was raised a devort, Jesus loving christian. And you know what? I could still do my math homework without drooling and clawing at my eyes.

The danger in belief lies in the absence of doubt. It trains your mind to accept profound ideas without questioning their legitimacy. And much much worse, it can inspire horrible, irrational behavior that no sane person would engage in.

There may in fact be a god. Jesus may be exactly what he said he was. Any number of amazing and unbelievable things may be true. But to accept their truth without evidence is a dangeroud act of mysticism and irrationality.

Until the day when we can scientifically verify the answers to the great unanswered questions in the universe, any unfounded belief is little more than a tribal mysticism that an enlightened soceity should work to eliminate through education, argument, and example.

explained in terms of the sciences of psychology, genetics, and biology.

Interesting. You define psychology as science? But it goes against what you define science as. Psychology is almost impossible to test, and nothing it ever states is certain. It's a very unprovable field.

I have reasons for what I believe. It is not a completely blind faith. Through personal experiences and my own reasoning, I have led myself to believe that there must be a God. I can understand your frustration with religion. The church of old was against anything new, but now it has changed and has started to embrace the beliefs of others. It no longer has the stance of only one way to God. It embraces Judaism, Buddhism, and has started to allow scientific evidence that challenges teachings in the Bible.

It seems to me that you were raised up in the wrong kind of religion and that it did not allow you free thought. I would just ask you to look at the Church today and see how it has changed.

but now it has changed and has started to embrace the beliefs of others. It no longer has the stance of only one way to God. It embraces Judaism, Buddhism, and has started to allow scientific evidence that challenges teachings in the Bible.

Yeah, that's my one big beef with Relig-fanatic homophobes who say "Oh, the Bible says that homosexuality is evil. Ohhhh". I mean, the Bible also said that men were far superior to women, and that misbehaving children were to be dealt with in the strictist of manners. The Bible was a document of philosophy for the people of the time, and it was written for people of that time. It has lost some of it's revelance because the world has changed.

^^^And we have to remember that it is fallible. Even if it was inspired by God, the people who chose what books to be in the Bible were human.

Amaster42 wrote:Interesting. You define psychology as science? But it goes against what you define science as. Psychology is almost impossible to test, and nothing it ever states is certain. It's a very unprovable field.

Um... no.

A few days ago I finished a college Psych course, and I can tell you it is definitely a scientific field of study.

The field is full of experiments. Experiments involving observation of behavior, as well as the whole chemical aspect that goes along with it.

Nothing science ever states is certain. Science isn't a field where you "prove" things. Anything we regard as truth is susceptible to being stuck down in one blow by a disproof delivered by new information.

Eh, I have to concede, I've never studied psychology outside of a casual enviorment. (Not for lack of want. Dang my schools 8 credit limit)

Even if it was inspired by God, the people who chose what books to be in the Bible were human.

phattonez wrote: but Beldaran is calling me a fool for what I believe.

I don't think you are a fool. I think you are infected with a form of contagious insanity that causes you to believe in magic. I used to be infected too.

If believing in a magic wizard who created the universe and then commited suicide to prevent you from going to a never ending dimensionof ultimate torture makes you feel like a fool, then that is something you need to deal with, not me.

If believing that somehow, with the millions of possible permutations somehow some chemicals came together and formed somthing called DNA, and then, against the odds that DNA somehow generated a container around it, and little organelles inside it, and that those cells were somehow able to group together, and actually recognize each other and specialize, and that somehow all the complexity of the human body could come about by a strand consisting of the same four chemicals over and over again, and that somehow those cells could become concious of theselves, if that makes you look like a fool,

then that is something you need to deal with, not me.

Both ideas have flaws, one is imossible to prove (and extremely unlikely that it happened), and the other takes a considerable amount of faith.

My belief is supposedly foolish because it does not agree with Beldaran's conclusion.

Whether or not you believe in God or the Big Bang is a personal belief. It's not something that you need to argue on the internet or convert other people to your idea of what's right, and it sure as hell doesn't make you who you are.

For example, I'm an athiest, but I've met many christians that are far more respectable, enjoyable, and tolerable to be around than Beldaran here. Regardless if he believes in a god or the big bang, he'll still be a douchebag. And from some of the statements he's made in this thread it sounds like he has much larger issues to work out with himself besides religion.

So why argue with him? Besides, he's just bullshitting you guys into a senseless straw man debate. It's getting sad to read through.