The God Delusion

[Nubclear]

I can't disprove the thesis that invisible elves are watching my every move...therefore they must exist.
But I can't disprove the thesis that invisible elves are NOT watching my every move...therefore they must not exist.

What do I do?

[Drake Tungsten]

You should give the Book of Mormon to your parents and see how they react to finding out that they've been ignorant of the truth for their whole lives...

[Nubclear]

A person once tried to sell me a Book of Mormon for $10.

[Flip McWho]

So would having faith that the sun'll come up tomorrow.

It's just the right choice.

True, the key word being choice

Apparently you haven't read the posts of some of the posters of this thread..

I've read every single one, even Lord Shiva's, who happens to be on my ignore list because of that other thread where he posted a link. I fail to see how those who have posted here are advocating for a state enforced ban on theism, though I'm only saying this in relation to this thread.



Regards to the OP:

You're recommending a book to read. There's no harm in that, they can refuse to take up your recommendation or they can read it and form their own opinion. It's not like you're forcing them to read the book.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
I can't disprove the thesis that invisible elves are watching my every move...therefore they must exist.
But I can't disprove the thesis that invisible elves are NOT watching my every move...therefore they must not exist.

What do I do?

That's ok. I believe that they are. I hope that this tidbit of enlightenment didn't embarrass you in anyway.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Jon Miller


You have also, yourself, PH, said that atheism should be forced on people..

JM
(maybe not in this thread, but stil..)

No I have not, I have advocated better education...

And Jon, I always thought you would be a bit more questioning to your faith - you seem an intelligent and well-educated bloke. You are definitely amongst the more rational with it.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Joseph
Jesus once said, he who turns away from my Father, My Father will turn away from him.
Since I don't have a fee pass, I do believe and if I do get there, Heavin that is, I doubt that I will see most of you there unless you change your ways.

Yeah, using your bizarre and twisted Christian logic really works on atheists

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


No I have not, I have advocated better education...

And Jon, I always thought you would be a bit more questioning to your faith - you seem an intelligent and well-educated bloke. You are definitely amongst the more rational with it.

Maybe I am misremembering, or maybe you said in tongue in cheek?

I try to understand my faith, and others faith (and lack of faith).

Jon Miller

[Provost Harrison]

I'm not the type to coerce someone into doing something, but I do have a problem with others coercing someone into a belief system. I just think that the whole theological issue should be avoided until a certain higher level of maturity when a logical choice can be made.

[Jon Miller]

but teaching nothing is equivilent to teaching atheism (isn't that the whole argument of weak atheism? that it isn't the beleif of no god, rather the absence of a beleif in any particular god?)

and it is fact that most people stick with whatever they are taught (even more so atheists then theists.. theists are much more likely to change 'brands')

JM

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by GePap
Not believing there is such a thing as god because there is no empirical support is not a faith, because it is based on the simple scientific principle that only those things that can be tested and experimented on can be accepted as real.

QFT

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I'm not the type to coerce someone into doing something, but I do have a problem with others coercing someone into a belief system. I just think that the whole theological issue should be avoided until a certain higher level of maturity when a logical choice can be made.

It might be better just to accept that others have their faith, rather than sneering at 'immaturity', or whatever. Intolerance on one side can lead to intolerance in the other.

[Whaleboy]

Can you show anything about the existence/non-existence of gods or God?

Every single argument I have seen from atheists provides not one bit of evidence against the existence of gods/God. It's merely wishful thinking, and fuzzy logic.

As reluctant as I am to turn this thread into a debate about the existence / non-existence of God, I think your post deserves a response simply on the grounds that it's so misleading.

Consider the intelligent design hypothesis. It relies on the choice between pure chance (life in all its varity somehow magically assembled itself with some cosmic role of the dice, which is ridiculously unlikely), and design (life must have been designed to account for this improbability). However, once ID has been ripped to shreds by Natural Selection, it begs an important question (in rather the same was as the cosmological argument). Who designed God? A process of evolution would be contrary to Gods nature, similarly would a process of design. Pure chance then? Can you imagine the improbability of that?

So now already you have a measure of improbability against the existence of God that is significantly different to 50/50.

Sticking with empirical arguments, you have the argument from poor design. This goes to say that many organs and creatures contain strange and self-defeating features that would have any designer or engineer awake at night, but is exactly what you'd expect if life had evolved by a process of natural selection. Consider poor teeth and sinus drainage; a result of humans having a flat faith. Not to mention the mammalian retina being almost inside out, with nerves and capillaries actual on the surface.

We then face issues of theodicy and various ontological and empirical arguments; but I'd be here for a geological age if I was to describe them all.

I think for the time being I've done enough to show how a default 50/50 God/non-God agnosticism is not realistic. Indeed, why base it on 50/50, is that an assumption?

As for fuzzy logic, examples please.

Atheism requires just as much faith as theism... only atheists pretend that it's not faith.

Strange, when atheism as a philosophical position is based upon non-faith, or rationality. It's a position that requires you to have an understanding of the concepts involved; I would say that anyone who has faith in atheism isn't really an atheist. I don't doubt that there are some, perhaps many, but they dont represent me or the majority of atheists in my view. I think we could stray dangerously towards semantic masturbation, because atheist will in most cases be a sufficient condition to "naturalist", and it would be idiotic of anyone to say "naturalism" is based on faith.

I find it hilarious. For some reason, atheists are unable to admit there are things in the universe that they simply will never understand and never know.

What's more moronic... believing there to be things in the universe you'll never know about (with no reason to support that), or treating anything that exists as subject to empirical experiment (which is the foundation of scientific theory). History has shown that it is always the people who place artificial limitations on science that end up being humiliated.

Odin. If you are an atheist, you cannot be a scientist (philosophically). Atheism is a belief that cannot be proven. A true scientist would not come to conclusions without sufficient proof.

Your entire argument rests on the assumption that there *isn't* sufficient evidence, and I think I've already dealt with that when answering Jon Miller.

I think Sava owns this thread. He expressed it more clearly than any of us could.

Too bad he's wrong. Eloquence =| correctness.

An atheist says there is no God. They gamble their soul on it. That's faith.

Not at all, Pascal's wager assumes the idea of a Christian God, so imagine you live your life according to a Christian God, only to meet Baal at the pearly gates. Down to hell with you.

If there is a God, one would think he'd not be worried about petty legalisms, and be far more concerned with how honest people are. I'm not going to become dishonest out of the "fear" of what might happen when I die, the whole idea is an absolute joke!

No, that's faith at best.

Precisely

All scientists, who I know, know that there are things that can not be tested or experimented on (currently) that are real.

Same could have been said of Martian soil 100 years ago.

ost beleive that there are things that will never be able to be tested on or experimented on that are real

Such as? On what grounds? Link to studies of scientific opinion on this?

This is just in the field of scientific inquiry known as physics. If you include it to less grounded disciplines, it becomes even more true.

And become less and less true in more grounded disciplines, such as biology no?

I do believe and if I do get there, Heavin that is, I doubt that I will see most of you there unless you change your ways.

If it's the sort of club that depends on such a pedantic host, I'm not particularly interested. I'm more interested in living a good life on Earth, rather than buying a good afterlife with good behaviour.

It is a fundamental lack of respect. These lapses in respect tend to have messy endings.

Does religion deserve respect because such a great majority of people adhere to it? Why? Self protection? You see, out of politeness and courtesy I used to hold that very same opinion but I've since realised that it's pointless. There is a fundamental discomfort in today's society with anything that undermines religion, but why and how did religion get into this priviliged position? Why does it deserve our respect?

No, for many it is an ideology. It does say how one should live their life.. namely without God (or spirituality) in it.

That's little more than the kind of crap preachers will shove down people's throats while teaching them of the evils of "unbelief". Whether or not I live my life with God in it has no bearing on my actions. I gave a homeless bloke a pizza the other day, I'd have done the same with or without God. I did it because that's the person that I am. If there is a God, wouldn't you agree that he'd be much more interested in that kind of act, rather than the act of believing (which is out of my control... I could not for the life of me force myself to believe in God).

It's when the urge is felt to look down upon those who do not beleive as you do that the problems come in.

It's not a question of looking down on someone. I don't somehow hold my relatives in less esteem. I disagree with their religion, that's all. If you're a democrat, would you consider a republic to be less a person than you, or just his opinions to be less true than yours?

Rather it is comment on your fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism? If (royal) you actually presented us with an argument (which in 5 pages no-one but the atheists have done), I for one would listen and take your views seriously while I consider and address them. I'm not going to strap a bomb to myself and proudly goosemarch around repeating "there is no god, there is no god" to myself ad nausium.

You have also, yourself, PH, said that atheism should be forced on people..

AFAIK, he and I have only said that atheism should be offered to people as an alternative. I'm not going to make someone read a book at gunpoint, tape their eyes open and move their eyeballs over the page with my finger.

I can't disprove the thesis that invisible elves are watching my every move...therefore they must exist.
But I can't disprove the thesis that invisible elves are NOT watching my every move...therefore they must not exist.

What do I do?

What you do is assess the probability of the existence of either, as well as establishing whether each or either can exist, and allow that to inform your opinion.

You should give the Book of Mormon to your parents and see how they react to finding out that they've been ignorant of the truth for their whole lives...

Difference being my family wouldn't take the BoM seriously .

but teaching nothing is equivilent to teaching atheism (isn't that the whole argument of weak atheism? that it isn't the beleif of no god, rather the absence of a beleif in any particular god?)

Not necessarily, again I'd prefer to say teaching "naturalism". If one teaches theism in history and naturalism in science and philosophy. To teach "nothing" is necessarily to teach weak (temporary) agnosticism because no evidence is being given. I think it is important to teach where the universe and life came from, so teaching naturalism would make it atheism... but then, you're teaching something aren't you?

It might be better just to accept that others have their faith, rather than sneering at 'immaturity', or whatever. Intolerance on one side can lead to intolerance in the other.

The problem is that we already have intolerance on the theist side. Atheists have, for centuries, been burned, ridiculed, and even today in the USA, while ~90% of people would trust a gay politician, only 49% of people would trust an atheist (according to Dawkins book). It's about time in my view that naturalists and atheists stood up and said "enough of this nonsense".

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


I think Sava owns this thread. He expressed it more clearly than any of us could.

Sava's being a douche as usual. He really should stop commenting on anything to do with science or philosophy.

[Jon Miller]

an interesting review

http://www.amazon.com/gp/discussionboard/discussion.html/ref=cm_rdp_st_rd/102-4986906-1877758?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0618680004&store=yourstore&cdThread=Tx2EV7JQ1YQM9BF&reviewID=R2MSH9L7V54QN9&iid=0618680004&displayType=ReviewDetail

JM