How can you possibly be an athiest?

[Urban Ranger]

@ Stefu

[Stefu]

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.

[MRT144]

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!

[Spiffor]

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.

[yavoon]

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.

[Az]

Well, I´d say if God exists, he wouldn´t 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.

[ranskaldan]

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.

[St Leo]

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.

[Spiffor]

Yavoon, what I call "faith in science" is this.

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.

[GePap]

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.

[Spiffor]

GePap :
Gah you got me, I agree with you again

[Az]

GePap: but what if outside the universe logic doesn't apply? we don't know what goes on outside the universe.

[MRT144]

beaver cheese...thats just...wrong

[GePap]

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.

[St Leo]

It has successfully explained almost everything we are currently aware of. I induce that it should not have problems explaining the rest.