To the Christians here...

[rocketdodger]

Its amazing how little evidence you can find when you intentonally look away from it or insult it. There are many who find ways to reconcile the two in their minds and there are many groups of people who can peacefully and even happily congregate in mixed company so to speak.

Its also amazing how little evidence you can find when you are 100% honest and look everywhere as hard as you can, which is pretty much what I do.

And I would say that the only way to reconcile dogmatic babblygook with evidence based reason is a doublethink. Some things only require as little as a good reason why one should believe in them, I would consider that evidence enough -- but with religious dogma, you will rarely even get that.

How could their "inferior" faith based beliefs possibly threaten such a pillar of scientific thought such as yourself?

Because the pillar of my personal belief system is that I am not sure of anything, and I will trade up ideas for better ones if they present themselves. In contrast, all the beliefs of organized religion seem to insist on being correct, which means if I adopted them it would be very hard to get my head out. I find such a black hole of thought very threatening.

You might suggest I just remain a critical thinker, but how can you believe something if you are constantly questioning it? You can't, unless the belief is precisely that you should question everything. To "believe" in the dogma of any organized religion, one has to completely dump that mindset, and once done I think it is hard to get it back.

And it just so happens that most religious people can be assumed to want to defend their religion... gofig. It seems to me you are perfectly willing and ready to insult anyone who turns out to be religious as is evidenced by the comment about the Jeopardy contestant earlier.

I am ready to attack, not insult, anyone who turns out to adhere to religious doctrine that threatens my way of life. I limit my "insults" to flippant comments made behind their back, and that is only to spark emotion so my posts get replied to (snicker). I will never resort to name-calling or any other kind of purposeful insults when dealing with someone directly.

I think you would find that you could avoid religious people and their "evil" faith much more easily if you avoided forums that pertained to the subject of religion.

I already stated that there is a miscommunication here. I am against the "popular organized religions," not religion in general. In other words, I have no problem with shamans or limited theists or whoever else. As such, I like this forum because 1) I absolutely love philosophy and 2) I enjoy learning different perspectives regarding metaphysical questions.

What I DON'T enjoy is 10000 christians regurgitating their dogmatic biblical "facts." I have heard it before, I already got that perspective, lets move on to something new please.

 

[rocketdodger]

Give me a prediction that the macroevolutionary theory makes. You know, how they question Nostradamus stuff. After it happens, you say that it was predicted. So make a prediction then. Place it in a particular point in time. When that time comes, we'll see about the prediction.

In a few thousand years, unless we start actively altering DNA, most humans will need alot of health care (eyesight correction, medicines, surgeries, etc).

 

[Anacoluthon64]

You might suggest I just remain a critical thinker, but how can you believe something if you are constantly questioning it? You can't, unless the belief is precisely that you should question everything.

Including, I would explicitly add, that last belief itself.

'Luthon64

 

[rocketdodger]

Animals don't make predictions. Plant activity is also predictable, that doesn't mean plants make predictions.

Oops I assumed a wrong definition. Regardless... are you claiming that humans could survive if we dumped all of our thought and relied solely on animal instincts?

No, I already know why, and I didn't like the book.

Then please tell me why, in your own words.

On its own, no institution or methodology is responsible for anything. Science does not assert that it is good for people to live longer lives.

I agree. On the other hand, though, organized religion does assert that people trying to take their fate into their own hands is morally wrong.

 

[rocketdodger]

Including, I would explicitly add, that last belief itself.

Doesn't that create a paradox? Kind of like that debate between upchurch and hammegk about whether or not we can be 100% sure of anything.

 

[elliotfc]

if there is a god then i for one do not think it willturn away ayone as its so called projection into our wworld jesus is meant o have cleared all sin, so we all go to heavan or am i missing something here.......

Acceptance/recognition of that fact. If you don't agree that certain sins that Jesus "took away" were sins to begin with, then they haven't been taken away, because you hold onto them for yourself.

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

Then please tell me why, in your own words.

The characters, or more like characterizations. Real flimsy. She would talk about how beautiful the good people were and how ugly the bad people were for page after page after page. The ending with John Galt?s ramblings were naueseating. The dialgoue made me cringe. All the names were cartoonish. It was just ridiculous as a lover of well-written fiction.

As for the philosophy, I don't like didacticism in fiction.

-Elliot

 

[drkitten]

Give me a prediction that the macroevolutionary theory makes. You know, how they question Nostradamus stuff. After it happens, you say that it was predicted. So make a prediction then. Place it in a particular point in time. When that time comes, we'll see about the prediction.

A prediction that macroevolutionary theory makes. Here's a few, just quickly, off the top of my head. Most of the supporting argumentation can be found in Dawkins' excellent book The Ancestor's Tale.

• All mammals will have genetic analogues to the human alpha and beta hemoglobin clusters (since the apparent duplication event that led to those occurred about half a billion years, in a jawless fish that was ancestral to all mammals).
• All reptiles and birds likewise
• ... but not all insects
• The chordate ancestors of sea squirts looked like tadpoles throughout their entire lifespan.
• No chordate fossils will be found earlier than about 600 millon years.

 

[elliotfc]

i have often wandered why US chiristian fundamentalists largely ignore the chrisitian bit of the bible and zero in on the Old testament the non christian bit.

I wonder the same about randi forum fundamentalists.

 

[elliotfc]

What would it take to convince you while you are still living that God didn't exist?

The same thing it would take you to accept that God *did* exist. If he came down and told you. Meaning, if God came down and told you that he existed, then you'd accept he exists. Same for me. If God came down and told me that he didn't exist, then I'd accept that he didn't exist.

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

Christians are already brainwashed, thus the problems do occur.

Better to be brainwashed than to have a filthy mine like yours!

!!!

Take that!

Bif bam pow! My jeet kune do is too powerful!

 

[elliotfc]

Yes, you have changing standards for what you'll consider believable and what is not. Simply put, you don't apply the same skepticism to your god that you would to the belief that bigfoot exists. Oh wait, in your case, you would. Scratch that.

When my bigfoot strikes you in the nose you too will believe in bigfoot!

 

[rocketdodger]

The characters,
...snip...

No, I meant please tell me why irrational people and rational people have approximately the same life spans today.

 

[elliotfc]

This is the kind of idea that prompts the fear of death, and the desire of (or need to believe in) an afterlife. Darkness, nothingness, loneliness; is that really what you think non-existence would be like? I didn’t exist before I was born, and I can’t say those 15 billion years were unpleasant. What would make you think another non-existent state would be any different?

He didn't say that it was unpleasant. Oblivion is what is is, darkness is a pretty good analogy. Obviously your eyes won't be of much use as receivers and manipulators of light stimuli.

 

[elliotfc]

No, I meant please tell me why irrational people and rational people have approximately the same life spans today.

I think that, in general, people like living longer lives than shorter lives, regardless of contrived/imposed distinctions of rationality/irrationality.

-Elliot

 

[Anacoluthon64]

Doesn't that create a paradox? Kind of like that debate between upchurch and hammegk about whether or not we can be 100% sure of anything.

I don't think it creates a paradox (I don't know about the hammegk/Upchurch debate, so I can't comment). Rather, it seems to imply an infinite regress of metaquestioning, metametaquestioning, metametameta..., etc. However, this isn't really a difficulty if the particular (meta)levels are diligently kept distinct, and a single metaquestion is sufficient.

All I meant to suggest is that one also needs to examine one's belief that it is necessary to question everything (in the sense that some things are highly probable, whereas others aren't, and that the probabilities may change in the light of new data) by its own rules. In other words, one must also ask in what circumstances such a questioning attitude is not warranted, and if so, for what reasons. In yet other words, it is necessary to examine one's own acceptance and rejection criteria for a particular belief. To not do so would be an example where the dictum is violated.

'Luthon64

 

[Thomas]

It was just ridiculous as a lover of well-written fiction.

Actually, the bible isn't that well-written

..but then again, what can one expect from bronze age mythology?!

 

[I less than three logic]

I don't know. I can only believe, because (since I'm not physically dead yet), I have no way to know otherwise. That's why I'm forced to believe or disbelieve.

Why is that so difficult for some to understand?

Thanks for all the irrelevant bolding. Did I say know anywhere within that entire post? I said think; do you think that is what a non-existent state would be like? Think and believe have very similar meanings in this sense. It would have been just as correct for me to ask; do you believe that is what a non-existent state would be like? It would certainly be easier to understand if you took what others said in the correct context.

What makes you believe that you didn't exist before you were born?

What makes you believe that there is such a thing as a "non-existent" state?

I have no evidence that I existed before I was born, do you? I have this tendency not to put belief into things for which have no evidence.

As for “such a thing as a ‘non-existent’ state”, I’m fairly certain that’s the state that everything that doesn’t exist is in, or do you believe “everything” exists; unicorns, pixies, leprechauns, etc. Does everything exist, or is there something, anything, non-existent?

 

[Tricky]

The same thing it would take you to accept that God *did* exist. If he came down and told you. Meaning, if God came down and told you that he existed, then you'd accept he exists. Same for me. If God came down and told me that he didn't exist, then I'd accept that he didn't exist.

-Elliot

LOL. Let it not be said that Christians don't have a sense of humor.

 

[trvlr2]

By Luthon64--"'Doesn't that create a paradox? Kind of like that debate between upchurch and hammegk about whether or not we can be 100% sure of anything.'
I don't think it creates a paradox (I don't know about the hammegk/Upchurch debate, so I can't comment). Rather, it seems to imply an infinite regress of metaquestioning, metametaquestioning, metametameta..., etc. However, this isn't really a difficulty if the particular (meta)levels are diligently kept distinct, and a single metaquestion is sufficient.

All I meant to suggest is that one also needs to examine one's belief that it is necessary to question everything (in the sense that some things are highly probable, whereas others aren't, and that the probabilities may change in the light of new data) by its own rules. In other words, one must also ask in what circumstances such a questioning attitude is not warranted, and if so, for what reasons. In yet other words, it is necessary to examine one's own acceptance and rejection criteria for a particular belief. To not do so would be an example where the dictum is violated."

'Luthon64



Good point, Luthon. I would offer that one could cease questioning a particular belief whenever that belief operates 100% effectively.

A possible aside/derail, I have never ,personally, found a religious person who actually knew all the beliefs propounded by his particular sect, and yet claimed to be a faithful follower of *****.
I HAVE seen cherrypicking of the more agreeable beliefs, tho.

Might be interesting if our Xtians would be specific in stating their beliefs.