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quantum_mechani
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Alaska
Nov 2002
time: 20:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Last Conformist
quote:
Originally posted by quantum_mechani
Well, you must admit speculation about gods is much more interesting (if no more useful) than about pink unicorns. |
If so, so what?
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The thing is, when you look back to the beginning of the universe, talking about the universe springing into being with no catalyst from anywhere starts to look a lot like the mystical stuff in most religions.
If there was a catalyst, it could have been quite literally anything, but you might as well call it a god. Of course, then you are left with the question of where did the catalyst come from, but that is far from proving it cannot have existed (not that I'm saying it did exist). |
Speculate all you want. Postulating a creator doesn't solve any problems wrt to cosmology, and thus has no interest to cosmology as a science. |
I have no problem with people who simply don't care if there was anything before the universe, seems a perfectly reasonable viewpoint given it is very unlikely to effect them. I only have a problem with people who say, for no clear reason, "God exists.", "God does not exist.", or the worst and most common, "God exists, here is really long list of of all the things He had to tinker with after creating the universe."
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by quantum_mechani
But you have switched the questions. The questions were "Do you believe in god?", "Do you believe the coin landed heads or tails?". |
No, I did not switch questions. I pointed out that latter question is by no means a parallel to the first one, then I suggested one that would work better.
First, for a fair, ideal coin, the chances for either side coming up is 50%. This is not the case for any "god" you may have in mind.
Second, you can always find out whether the coin is heads or tails after making your guess. Not so with god.
Third, your question is about an attribute of an existing object, while my is about whether an entity exists or not. You may think this distinction is moot, however, this happens to be one of the fatal flaws of the Ontological Argument.
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Colon
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Antwerp, Colon's Chocolate Canard Country
Jan 1970
time: 06:31
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bah nm
Last edited by Colon on 08-09-2005 at 08:52
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quantum_mechani
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Alaska
Nov 2002
time: 20:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
No, I did not switch questions. I pointed out that latter question is by no means a parallel to the first one, then I suggested one that would work better.
First, for a fair, ideal coin, the chances for either side coming up is 50%. This is not the case for any "god" you may have in mind.
Second, you can always find out whether the coin is heads or tails after making your guess. Not so with god.
Third, your question is about an attribute of an existing object, while my is about whether an entity exists or not. You may think this distinction is moot, however, this happens to be one of the fatal flaws of the Ontological Argument. |
If you have no information about something, and there are two options for it's status, what chances would you suggest besides 50/50?
Being able to check if your guess is correct is not relevant to making the guess in the first place.
If you would rather use the question about the existence of the coin, feel free.
quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
If you asserted that a god caused this universe to come into existence, the logical question will then be, "Who created your god?"
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Maybe you should have finished reading my post. 
I pointed out that having a catalyst does not really solve anything as far as the origin of everything. But it boils down to this: Can you prove that there was nothing that influenced the creation of the universe? And as I would likewise ask theists: Can you prove that the universe was influenced by something? As we have no evidence about anything prior to the universe, making assumptions about it seems wishful thinking.
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Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Only inasmuch as there are actually people who care for some reason.
Were there not religionists, no one would even conceive of it.
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I agree, in theory, it should really not matter. But there is something about humans that they cannot resist thinking about their origins, and by extension, the universe's.
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by quantum_mechani
If you have no information about something, and there are two options for it's status, what chances would you suggest besides 50/50? |
What is this something?
Is this a supernatural being similar to the Judeo-Christianity YHWH or is this an ordinary coin? I am not sure if you can call the former "something" either, since it is most likely "nothing."
Lets consider the famous Pascal's Wager. If you don't know what it is, click on the link for some info. The objections to it are many, the one that has to do with what you wrote is as follows.
Pascal assumed if there is a god, it has to be the Christian YHWH. Thus, he assigned a 50% chance to such a god's existence, and went from there. However, this is far from the truth. There are many religions in this world, some still exist, many vanished. Suppose there are 99 different religions. So your chance of getting it right falls to 1% - 1 out of 100 (99 religions plus atheism, making it a nice 100). Or is this so?
Consider that, for each religion, you can either accept it or reject it. IOW, you can either choose to believe this religion or not. Applying your logic here, we assign a 50% chance to each. Now do this for every one of them. We end up having atheism on one side with a 50% chance, and the rest of the 99 religions sharing the other 50%.
You may say, "Well, even if there's a 0.0001% chance of getting it right, I rather believe so I can be in heaven instead of hell."
Again, this is not so simple. Many religions, including Christianity, forbids you from believing in another god. So getting it wrong here is just as bad as rejecting all of them.
quote:
Originally posted by quantum_mechani
Being able to check if your guess is correct is not relevant to making the guess in the first place. |
Why would you bother to guess if you can't find out the answer?
quote:
Originally posted by quantum_mechani
If you would rather use the question about the existence of the coin, feel free. |
Okay. I am waiting.
quote:
Originally posted by quantum_mechani
But it boils down to this: Can you prove that there was nothing that influenced the creation of the universe? |
Please - don't make a baseless assertion and ask the other side to disprove it.
Can you show that there are no dancing elves on electrons?
quote:
Originally posted by quantum_mechani
As we have no evidence about anything prior to the universe, making assumptions about it seems wishful thinking. |
Since we don't have evidence of anything, logic dictates that we choose the position of there's nothing.
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quantum_mechani
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Alaska
Nov 2002
time: 20:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
What is this something?
Is this a supernatural being similar to the Judeo-Christianity YHWH or is this an ordinary coin? I am not sure if you can call the former "something" either, since it is most likely "nothing."
Lets consider the famous Pascal's Wager. If you don't know what it is, click on the link for some info. The objections to it are many, the one that has to do with what you wrote is as follows.
Pascal assumed if there is a god, it has to be the Christian YHWH. Thus, he assigned a 50% chance to such a god's existence, and went from there. However, this is far from the truth. There are many religions in this world, some still exist, many vanished. Suppose there are 99 different religions. So your chance of getting it right falls to 1% - 1 out of 100 (99 religions plus atheism, making it a nice 100). Or is this so?
Consider that, for each religion, you can either accept it or reject it. IOW, you can either choose to believe this religion or not. Applying your logic here, we assign a 50% chance to each. Now do this for every one of them. We end up having atheism on one side with a 50% chance, and the rest of the 99 religions sharing the other 50%.
You may say, "Well, even if there's a 0.0001% chance of getting it right, I rather believe so I can be in heaven instead of hell."
Again, this is not so simple. Many religions, including Christianity, forbids you from believing in another god. So getting it wrong here is just as bad as rejecting all of them.
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Have you been listening to what I was saying at all? I would assign every religion I have ever heard off an almost zero percent probability of being true. This is because they all makes assertions about events occurring after the creation of the universe, which in most cases _are_ disprovable.
quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Why would you bother to guess if you can't find out the answer?
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Well, as I said before, it is hard not to speculate about the origin of the universe even if you are not getting anywhere. Also, in my case, I live in an area of rampant fundamentalism, so when the topic of religion inevitably comes up, it is nice to have thought about the issue a little.
quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Please - don't make a baseless assertion and ask the other side to disprove it.
Can you show that there are no dancing elves on electrons?
Since we don't have evidence of anything, logic dictates that we choose the position of there's nothing. |
Well, if you defined the elves as undetectable by any means, I would concede there is some possibility you might be correct. In the case of saying something could have influenced the creation of the universe, it is such a vague assertion that it seems much more likely that it may have happened.
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Originally posted by molly bloom
As opposed to the 'non-fictional' gods coming to a high street promotional appearance near us any time soon, I suppose ? |
That is pretty much the point, I would not expect a non fictional god to care particularly about our obscure little corner of the universe. That is assuming it would be sentient (i.e., I define anything influencing the creation of the universe as a 'god'), and that if it was, it had not simply moved on after creating the universe.
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Heresson
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of frogs
Jun 2000
time: 06:31
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quote:
Originally posted by molly bloom
You can't follow the logic of your own posts .
Definitely nothing new under the sun there. |
I sort of expected this kind of answer, for I haven't seen You admitting any mistake here in these forums.
Still, it takes a lot of your self-confidence to claim You know better than I what I think.
I've written
quote:
education is always a form of indoctrination. You can not raise children without giving them any moral code "until they grow up and will be able to chose one". It's fantasy.
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I've quoted You here, because You seem to have a strange concept that without being taught religion, children will be free from indoctrination. In reply to this, I've stated that You have to teach children some moral code (religious or not).
There's nothing here that could make You think I believe atheists have no moral code. Au contraire, I've stated by these words that they do, for You can not go without it these days.
Az was able to understand it, but You were not.
I guess it's the fault of your bias: You want to correct me so badly, that not finding a mistake, You have to make it up. It's not the first time You do this.
Last edited by Heresson on 09-09-2005 at 19:51
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Heresson
I sort of expected this kind of answer, for I haven't seen You admitting any mistake here in these forums.
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I use you as my model.
What you wrote:
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...education is always a form of indoctrination. You can not raise children without giving them any moral code "until they grow up and will be able to chose one". It's fantasy. |
Notice what you put in quotation marks- clearly paraphrased from my post:
quote:
...then let them choose what religion (if any) they'd like. |
Perhaps you should have written that 'religious education' is always a form of 'indoctrination'.
I should think you could follow your logic of the necessary linking of religious instruction with the inculcation of a moral code.
Indoctrination is teaching someone to accept doctrines uncritically; education is not.
You can inform and educate children about moral codes of behaviour without their having to have religious instruction, or be brought up in a religious faith.
So they could, indeed, 'choose' to follow a religious faith, or none at all, if they so wished, and still have the benefit of knowing right from wrong, ethics, moral codes, and so forth.
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Az was able to understand it, but You were not. |
Really? You mean the bit where you say:
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education is always a form of indoctrination. |
and he replies:
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I disagree. It's a BAM, really. Everyone says this, but isn't really true. My parents educated me through discussion, never through indoctrination.
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Oh deary me, how I laughed.
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You seem to have a strange concept that without being taught religion, children will be free from indoctrination. |
There must be some kind of comprehension block in your mind when you read or mis-read, rather, my posts.
I neither said, nor do I think, anything of the sort.
How did you put it?
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...it takes a lot of your self-confidence to claim You know better than I what I think. |
Still, it's clear you know how your own mind works from time to time:
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You have to make it up. It's not the first time You do this. |
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07-09-2005 22:28
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