posted
I wish I could remember where I heard this, but a comedian had a bunch of jokes involving religion and was telling this story about his friend the aetheist and that he was an agnostic. A third friend asked "What's the difference?"
"A aethist has a firm belief that God doesn't exist. An agnostic isn't really decided one way or the other. As for me, I'm agnostic - just in case."
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Sounds like my own belief: "Hope for the best- expect the worst."
Or the old bit about how "no one's an aithest in a foxhole."
"The term 'creationist' is a bit of a catch all- some call themselves 'creationist' believe simply that there is a creator of everything, others that everyone decended from Adam and Eve and that's fine."
No it's not. Believeing in Adam and Eve (i.e. Yahweh created two primogenial Homo sapienses in their current form with no help from any damn dirty apes) is no different than those other ludicrous ideas you mentioned. [/QB][/QUOTE] It all gets pretty diversive from that point on though as to what people using the term believe though. While I would not group all "crationist" onto the short bus, the vocal minority of them are certifiable.
It's up to other believers to reign them in -or distance themselves from the term- an unbeliever's opinion wont carry the same weight as one of their own.
Any way you cut it, the creationism/Intelligent Design bit is not science. I can see them adding other "alternate theories" to science classes, like "an invisible hand holds up the plane" or "the stars are only small lights in the heaveans".
Religion as scientific theory does not work because science is always trying to refute itself and establish an observable cause and effect relationship. The "Inteligent desgn" bit does not- can not- do this: it would be heresy.
I cant say that Aithiesm is a religion- or even a faith. How do you define something by it's absence?
Science however has it's own "beliefs" but they rank lower than theory- the so caled "string theoryies" are not observable so they are just a premise on which to build a case for other work- also not something faith based beliefs can do- unless someone finds an artist's signature at the cellular level someday.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
quote:Originally posted by TSN: C And I have to agree with WizArtist (urgh, now I feel icky)
Somehow...it feels like the Earth has shifted off its axis. Come on Tim, I ain't THAT bad.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Ugh...what happened to the nice discussion about the appearance of a fictional spacecraft from a 40-year-old television series alongside fictional spacecraft in a current television series?
I LIKED THAT BETTER.
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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a) Jason happened, and b) I was too damn busy trying to bi) earn a living bii) find a screencap of that map of Voyager's route home to do anything about it.
posted
That having been done, I'm going to have to disagree with this atheism = religion business.
The religious point of view is, roughly, this: see this space where you can't see anything? Well, there's something there, which we have learned about through any number of indirect/nonempirical means (which boil down to tradition and revelation, essentially). Whereas the atheist counterpoint is: I'm going to go ahead and assume this empty space actually is empty.
There is, if you want to really get down to basics, a leap of faith involved here from both angles. But they are qualitatively different leaps, namely: faith that your observations fundamentally map to some exterior reality (that we aren't just brains in a jar, as the old saw goes) versus faith that despite being unobserved an entity or realm exists.
But, despite assertions by the Pope, atheism v. theism has nothing to do, at least intrinsically, with creation v. evolution.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
Tim: huh. I thought the more common view of atheism was that it represents the conscious rejection of all beliefs in the existence of a God (which doesn't imply a belief in the negation of the existence of one), whereas deists just deny the interference of a God (but not the existence of one) and agnostics don't reject any belief in the existence of a God but aren't committed to one either. At least, that's how I've always heard it defined.
Registered: Nov 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Sol System: But, despite assertions by the Pope, atheism v. theism has nothing to do, at least intrinsically, with creation v. evolution.
What assertions? Or are you making that up? And in case you didn't know, the Catholic Church believes in evolution, although I guess it's more along the "intelligent design" lines. Stephen Hawking even had an audience and an intelligent discussion with Pope John Paul II.
quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim: Ugh...what happened to the nice discussion about the appearance of a fictional spacecraft from a 40-year-old television series alongside fictional spacecraft in a current television series?
I LIKED THAT BETTER.
I've been asking myself that question since Page Three, about the time I gave up trying to re-rail this train wreck....
Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by B.J.: What assertions? Or are you making that up? And in case you didn't know, the Catholic Church believes in evolution, although I guess it's more along the "intelligent design" lines.
That's been my line of thinking for quite a few years, as well. There really is plenty of room in there for what I consider to be an intelligent Intelligent Design/Evolution cross-mix. How long is exactly is "One Day" in God's point of reference, anyhow...?
quote: Stephen Hawking even had an audience and an intelligent discussion with Pope John Paul II.
Kewel! [Ed MacMann]I did not know that![/Ed MacMann]
Registered: Apr 2003
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
OK... I just saw a repeat of an Enterprise episode where the Rommies were testing some Stealth vessel via remote control. I have not seen more than a handfull of episodes of E and don't know how this is going to end.
To be honest, the ship looked like it was from some X-men/Shi'ar empire hopped up on some Babylon 5. The ship could alter its appearance to resemble any type of ship and fire weapons from any race supposedly. This seems way advanced even for TNG era science. The vessels appearance also didn't fit with what TOS ships would look like either. Am I the only one that thinks this is a bad thing?
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:He quoted St. Basil the Great, a fourth century saint, as saying some people, "fooled by the atheism that they carry inside of them, imagine a universe free of direction and order, as if at the mercy of chance."
"How many of these people are there today? These people, fooled by atheism, believe and try to demonstrate that it's scientific to think that everything is free of direction and order," he said.
Moreover, B.J., you seem to have misunderstood my point, which was not "that dumb Pope believes in creation," but, rather, that the Pope recently implied that the underpinnings of modern biology were derived from an atheist ideology.
Registered: Mar 1999
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"Tim: huh. I thought the more common view of atheism was that it represents the conscious rejection of all beliefs in the existence of a God (which doesn't imply a belief in the negation of the existence of one), whereas deists just deny the interference of a God (but not the existence of one) and agnostics don't reject any belief in the existence of a God but aren't committed to one either. At least, that's how I've always heard it defined."
The definitions, as I understand it, and rather simplified, are :
atheism : belief that there is/are no god(s)
agnosticism : assumption that, whether there is/are (a) god(s) or not, we can't really tell, so there's no basis for a firm belief either way
theism : belief that there is/are (a) god(s) because it says so in holy books and such
deism : belief that there is/are (a) god(s) because it just seems like there ought to be
Registered: Mar 1999
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