13-04-2003 22:15									#31
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@ Stefu

	13-04-2003 22:19									#32
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And I'm not even an atheist. (I don't know what I am, and frankly don't think about it too much.)

Some forms of questioning just need the finger-snapping.

	13-04-2003 22:21									#33
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor I'm with Josh on this one. MRT : religion is adaptable too. Religion has been tweaked by priests since its very existence, and it continues to be tweaked with the various interpretations of the holy books. The holy books are an object of study and analysis for religious people, just like gravity is an object of study and analysis for physicists. You wouldn't say "science cannot evolve because gravity has always been the same and won't change", won't you ? It is the analysis of the gravity that changes. And it is the analysis of the holy books that changes too.

talk like that will get you burned at the stake!

	13-04-2003 22:34									#34
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UR :
I am precisely skeptical about this approach, this methodology. It is obvious our science is childish 'knowledge' compared to what the humanity will know in 1000 years, but I think our science, if it follows a method which has barely changed since the 19th century (because its definition is more philosophical than scientific), will not be able to explain everything.
Believeing in science means that believing in the perfection of the methodology at its core.

I am aware the method has evolved since its creation, but its basic philosophy remains the same. Believing in science is believeing this fundamental philosophy. Believing in religion is also believing in a fundamental philosophy. I don't need either one.

	13-04-2003 22:43									#35
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believing in science is believing in the basic human pursuit of knowledge and its usefulness. not believing ina theory or an approach.

all this garbage about faith in science is the same as faith in religion is absurdity. religion admits no ability to change, it only changes cuz ppl change and there is no other way for it to survive. when a new sect comes out it confesses itself as absolute truth just like the sect before it and the one before that.

	13-04-2003 22:43									#36
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quote: Well, IŽd say if God exists, he wouldnŽt like to be ignored by you...

I think that he/they/she/it can take it. I don't think that the way we behave has any implication on our future except the purely scientific physical one. If I hump a moose, rape a child or whatever, HE/THEY/SHE (I'll just refer to god/s as "it" from now on) is not going to feel bad about it, because what the **** is "bad", or for that matter "feel", for something that exists outside our universe?

**** that. I wish it would be loving, cozy, and all touchy feely, but it is not. It's nothing I can relate to, even if it exists, and if it exists outside the universe, there is no point talking about it anyway.

We should just make ourselves feel happy as much as possible. We are surely going to like it. After all, that's what we all really want. If it "wants to stop us" from doing any such thing, it probably will, but in that case it is it's fault from the beginning, since it supposedly made us. Unless, that is, he didn't know the result from the beginning, which is also a meaningless ****ing sentence, considering time is a dimension in our universe, and the mere concept doesn't exist outside it.

Basically, there is no point about discussing it. That's the conclusion I've reached after much pondering.

	13-04-2003 22:46									#37
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quote: Originally posted by Rogan Josh But don't you see that believing in that assumption is as sceintifically unfounded as a belief in God? You just have faith in a different religion.

You see, it works like this:

1) I don't absolute believe or not believe in anything; anything can be true or false; and humanity can never know all answers. But then humanity can make the best guesses to our own ability, based on what we see.

2) Science works in the same way.

3) Hence I tend to trust the findings of science.

	13-04-2003 22:49									#38
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Albert Speer - that is why I tend to respect agnostics more than atheists on initial meeting.

People will then often say, "But surely it's better to remain an Agnostic just in case?" This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I've been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.)
- Douglas Adams, interview

I agree with the above (except that I have fond memories of Bill Clinton).

I don't accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me, "Well, you haven't been there, have you? You haven't seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian beaver cheese is equally valid" – then I can't even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we'd got, and we've now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don't think that being convinced that there is no god is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. I don't think the matter calls for evenhandedness at all.
- Douglas Adams, interview

Another nice point.

	13-04-2003 22:51									#39
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Yavoon, what I call "faith in science" is this.

quote: Originally posted by St Leo Well, it can explain everything in this Universe and that's good enough for me.

It is not like acknowledging the usefulness of human knowledge.

	13-04-2003 22:51									#40
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Spiff: I disagree.

The question of sicence is absed on how you come to knowledge, and which way is more trustworthy. Now, if one sattes that there is no such thing as "truth", then any way of seekign "truth" is equally dogmatic. But the thing is that there is truth, just not THE TRUTH. Science is a methodology to study the physical world. As others have said, it makes, nor can it make, any claims about things that can't be answerd by experimenting.

Now, some people can turn sci8ence into a religion, but of course, almost anyting can be turned into a religion.

I am an atehist, simply because Theism for me is just delaying the question. If you can't tell me were God came from (and no theist can) then obviosuly you have no clue about the real beginning, even if you can tell me using God how the universe begun. You have moved the problem one step back and given up trying to solve it. Since spiritualism does not need theism, being an atheist odes not mean you are devoid of feelings that perhaps somehting beyond what Science can't experiment on (if perhaps only currently) exists.

	13-04-2003 22:54									#41
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GePap :
Gah you got me, I agree with you again

	13-04-2003 22:56									#42
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GePap: but what if outside the universe logic doesn't apply? we don't know what goes on outside the universe.

	13-04-2003 22:56									#43
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beaver cheese...thats just...wrong

	13-04-2003 23:06									#44
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quote: Originally posted by Azazel GePap: but what if outside the universe logic doesn't apply? we don't know what goes on outside the universe.

And we don't know most of what happens inside the universe either..

I think it is arrogant to think we can understand all.. and I don't think anyone has yet given me any proof that we can or can;t understand it all. What I do know is that , given what we do know, given our abilities, there are some ways of trying to discover how the world works that are better than others. They are demonstrably better, since they can show you not only in words but with full sensory dsiplays how something is, and why it is that way.

For me, Theism answers nothing to my satisfaction. Poeple all over the world, with utterly different methadologies of thinking, theiost and non have come to similar basic conclusion about how to live: it is much more rational tot hink then that eprhaps these answers were not derived from some ill defined God but perhaps rather are a common answer to the human condition, as natural perhaps as how all other social beings create some sort of order to govern themselves. And as for explaining the particulars of the natural world, the methdology of science has done a far better job than the theologias ever did.

	13-04-2003 23:09									#45
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It has successfully explained almost everything we are currently aware of. I induce that it should not have problems explaining the rest.

	13-04-2003 23:14									#46
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No, GePap, I understand this, And I agree with you. But, for example, what happened before the big bang? noone knows. All I say is, that it bears no moral or ethical luggage, in my opinion.

	13-04-2003 23:20									#47
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Where did the "big bang" material come from, if you go that direction?
Poof ?

	13-04-2003 23:55									#48
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Rogan, your error lies in assuming that science is about a set of laws. It is not. Science is about a methodology, an approach to acquire knowledge of nature. Hence, I am not assuming the laws we have now are going to explain everything in this Universe, but without this approach, we cannot hope to do so one day.

No, I am argueing precisely about the methodology. It is possible, some would say inevitable, that scientific methodology will not be able to explain everything in the universe, ever. This is a matter of principle - not just an inibility of scientists to do their job. To say that it will be able to, as you just did , is a statement of faith.

	13-04-2003 23:55									#49
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I don't know. Your 'God' hypothesis is intriguing, but I haven't seen any evidence supporting that claim.

	14-04-2003 00:08									#50
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Atheism is an absence of belief IN a god. Atheism does not pronounce that there isn't a God.

	14-04-2003 00:10									#51
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quote: Originally posted by Azazel No, GePap, I understand this, And I agree with you. But, for example, what happened before the big bang? noone knows. All I say is, that it bears no moral or ethical luggage, in my opinion.

I don't know what happened before the BIg bang, and perhaps we will never know what happened before it either. I personally don't crae too much about what happened before the Big bang; I am more inetrested in knwoing what happened and happens on Earth and its neighborhood.

And besides, Theism is not the onl non-sicentific answer to this question of what came before the beginning (I guess it is just as important to ask why there should be something, or perhaps thyis question is just one we ask due to some limitation in human understanding). After all, where the chinese ever big on Theism? I have enevr ehard anyone mention some Chinese gods..were there ever any?

	14-04-2003 00:12									#52
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Stefu:

How completely belongs here... I am not asking why is anyone an athiest... I am asking HOW (as in what basis do they have) can they be athiests if athiesm (the absolute belief that there is no God) is just as much blind faith as religion is?

	14-04-2003 00:13									#53
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quote: How completely belongs here... I am not asking why is anyone an athiest... I am asking HOW (as in what basis do they have) can they be athiests if athiesm (the absolute belief that there is no God) is just as much blind faith as religion is?

ATHEISM IS NOT THE BELIEF THAT THERE IS NO GOD.

	14-04-2003 00:14									#54
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speer its not like I'm gna bring up an example that hasn't been beatan into the ground but it appears ppl always ignore it.

if u sed there were invisible undetectable green men and I said "no there aren't" and then u sed "well u cant prove it so its only blind faith that there aren't." ppl would call u an idiot.

when u make a claim u need to back it up. u cant make something up then hide behind the fact that wut u made up is unprovable. thats absurd.

	14-04-2003 00:14									#55
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They were these spirits and demons, afaik in Taoism. But the chinese sort of grew tired of them, it seems. Confucianism, although being autocratic, and shauvenistic, was amazing for setting a way people should interact. Not because god would punish you otherwise, but because it is good for YOU.

	14-04-2003 00:25									#56
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quote: Originally posted by SlowwHand Who cares, Albert ? Let the little bastards burn for eternity.

That's not very Christian of you.

	14-04-2003 00:26									#57
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quote: Originally posted by Sava ATHEISM IS NOT THE BELIEF THAT THERE IS NO GOD.

Yes it is.

	14-04-2003 00:27									#58
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quote: Originally posted by Azazel They were these spirits and demons, afaik in Taoism. But the chinese sort of grew tired of them, it seems. Confucianism, although being autocratic, and shauvenistic, was amazing for setting a way people should interact. Not because god would punish you otherwise, but because it is good for YOU.

Well, demons and spirits are not Gods, realy, as they exist within the world and not divorced from it.

	14-04-2003 00:28									#59
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no, It's a lack of belief there is one, .

	14-04-2003 00:30									#60
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara Yes it is.

Atheism does not proclaim there is no God. It fosters an absence of belief. It's more like, we don't know if there is a God, we choose not to believe in one.

By your definition, Speer would be correct. But every atheist I know, including myself. Doesn't believe 100% that God doesn't exist. The existence or non-existence of God cannot be proven. Atheists stand behind that point. It's like a Venn Diagram.

Azazel.