posted
Sol, the two words are interchangeable, in some circles, while in others they are not, my circles have them interchangeable.
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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"Your axiomatic belief that God doesn't exist is no better or worse, from a logical standpoint, than mine that He does..."
Theoretically true. But, in actuality, would my lack of an axiomatic belief either way be better than your axiomatic belief?
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
That wasn't directed at you, particularly. While I stand by my general point, I sit corrected as to the specifics.
Registered: Mar 1999
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As usual, most of the points I raised get totally ignored. This is why I have to insult people, just to get some attention. Omega, you're a wanker. 8)
Seriously, though, I'm very interested in why people feel the need to have religion in the days when rationalism via science should mean such tendencies are on the decrease. A religious person will find that question redundant - they believe because they believe. But there are lots of religions in the world, most with tenets that contradict the others, they can't all be correct, so even if one religion is correct, that means that there are a helluva lotta people out there who don't have the true knowledge, but are simply deluded. That flash of insight, that feeling of being suffused with the holy spirit (or equivalent), that feeling of Godly presence - it's completely bogus, a shared self-delusion. Which brings me back to my question - why, then, do they believe at all?
WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
Why do people believe there are aliens out there? There is no empirical PROOF that any exist. Theoretically, the numbers alone imply their existence but it is still just theory. There was an agrument espoused earlier that you can't even prove 1 + 1 = 2. If, we can't even PROVE the most basic of mathematical equations, how can we prove ANYTHING? What or who's to say our very existence isn't a fevered delusion of some being we can't even imagine? Our knowledge is based for the most part on what we have been taught by others which in turn was taught to them. How do you prove that Magellan sailed around the world? Have you been on his ship? Have you seen artifacts from that journey? If you were not actually there and witnessed it, you are in fact having faith that that event occured. You are believing that the stories handed down from generation to generation are true. So why do you believe them? Because it is commonplace now that ships circle the globe?
Everyone has faith in something. Whether it is God, the Universe, their own intelligence, science, or the Jabberwock.
-------------------- 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
Are there actually any good numbers on whether religion (as measured by number of worshippers, maybe?) is actually getting stronger or weaker?
In arguments about intelligent design, you always hear about the growing power of religious conservatives. In arguments about the media bias, you always here about Christians claiming that they are under attack by secularization.
Does anyone actually have good numbers on what the actual trends are? Where in the US or elsewhere?
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:I'm very interested in why people feel the need to have religion in the days when rationalism via science should mean such tendencies are on the decrease.
You assume rationalism and science are inherently opposed to religion. That viewpoint, on BOTH sides, is self-perpetuating and completely not helpful. Because of that, we get scientists attacking religion as if it's their job as scientists, and religious people attacking science because they perceive themselves to be under attack at all times, whether they actually are or not. Otherwise perfectly intelligent people become totally irrational, and nothing productive occurs.
quote:That flash of insight, that feeling of being suffused with the holy spirit (or equivalent), that feeling of Godly presence - it's completely bogus, a shared self-delusion. Which brings me back to my question - why, then, do they believe at all?
Lee, your entire post reduces to "I don't believe, why do you?" No answer I give will satisfy you. That's why your posts get ignored, you asshat.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
quote:Originally posted by Lee: Seriously, though, I'm very interested in why people feel the need to have religion in the days when rationalism via science should mean such tendencies are on the decrease.
Because most people don't understand science. It's strange & unusual to them & they get their science ideas from shit like The 6th day. And they get afeared of it. Better to believe in The All-Knowing Gonk who obviously has a plan, & that way they can NOt have to think for themselves, NOT understand what's around them, & thus continue in their perfect little haze of self-deluding euphoria.
Please note this statement is chock full of generalizations & is not directly aimed at anyone here or else that I know. Except maybe one really fucking HOT girl i used to work with at Champs.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
As far as inherently opposed goes, science only attacks religion in those instances where religion pretends to make a scientific claim ("the Earth is 6000 years old", "god exists fully outside the material universe yet can interact with it", etcetera). That's what science should do, otherwise there's no point to practising it.
Registered: Nov 1999
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
OK OK...Religion is not logical. That doesn't mean it can't be true. Logic cannot be 'all there is' ... because logically (hehehe) there is no such thing as absolute truth. Also, every few hundred or thousand years we have a major paradigm shift and come up with something new. Science overturned supersition; on a smaller scale, quantum mechanics overturned Newtonianism. But, it still allows Newton to be right, on a *limited scale.* What if the next thing we discover overturns science, but allows it to be a good approximation that we can use within the world we see? The same way Newton's laws are statistical approximations of quantum probabilities. And what if in this new framework of understanding, God makes sense too? I'm just saying, we don't *know* but you can't rule something out just because it doesn't fit with our current understanding. If we always did that we never would've gotten beyond fire.
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
Well, THEORETICALLY, if you extrapolate the decay of Earth's electromagnetic field backwards in time it would be too strong to allow life to exist at about 60 THOUSAND years ago.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
Which 1) says NOTHING about the AGE of the PLANET and 2) blindly IGNORES the EMPIRICAL evidence that it VARIES in strength AND reverses itself PERIODICALLY, but I'm SURE that wasn't your POINT, was IT (man, I miss this style of writing)?
Daniel: You're right, we can't rule anything out. That's basically the problem of induction. We can only establish a measure of the likelihood that something is an accurate account of nature. The problem with god, though, is that we also can't design any experiments to test if he's even there or not. The discoveries that led to the development of quantum mechanics were all testable, but there will never be any paradigm shift within science that'll let us stick a probe up god's holy hole and gain a deep empirical understanding of him. "Knowledge" of god is always going to remain on the philosophical level.
[ August 31, 2006, 02:39 PM: Message edited by: Cartman ]
Registered: Nov 1999
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quote:As far as inherently opposed goes, science only attacks religion in those instances where religion pretends to make a scientific claim ("the Earth is 6000 years old", "god exists fully outside the material universe yet can interact with it", etcetera). That's what science should do, otherwise there's no point to practising it.
The claim that "god exists fully outside the material universe yet can interact with it" is not a scientific claim, as it does not involve observation or experiment.
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