Are you arguing about his use of language or the principle of quantum time? I think you have a point about his use of language and I will let him answer thta but I agree with him that time is fundamentally quantum.
I can’t speak to how atheists are treated in Texas, but if we’ve broadened this discussion into a more general one, then there are lot things to respond do here. First, this: This doesn’t stand up, but strangely it seems to have become a popular fallacy here. A large majority of the people on earth believe in a god or gods. About half of the world’s population believes in the God of Abraham. Otoh, almost nobody believes in unicorns, leprechauns or the tooth fairy, and that makes this a false comparison. From a strictly scientific standpoint, if ¾ of the world’s population believes in anything then the most logical conclusion from that is that there is something to those beliefs. Statistically it’s virtually impossible for that to be a coincidence. What exactly the beliefs mean is another question, but there is no comparison whatsoever to a belief in unicorns, leprechauns or the tooth fairy, and that should be quite obvious to anyone who’s being honest.
1) Yes, the big 3 all advocate violence in some form or another. Islam is particularly bad about it, however. 2) Secularism has about as much to do with advocating/teaching violence as a tennis racket does with playing basketball.
The majority of the world believed the planet was flat, too. I despise the "well, lots of people believe in it, so it is more valid!" The number of people that believe in a God of some sort is dropping, and the form of that God is inconsistent from religion to religion. It is certainly far from any sort of unified belief, and like I said, the number of believers is decreasing. Your argument doesn't stand up, either. It's pointless arguing anything, though, really. I believe X, you believe Y, neither of us can prove it. What's the point? I am fond of accepting Y as a possibility, but I still favor X.
He has previously. Might I recommend that you heed your own advice. No, I have not. I take it you're still smarting over your repeated intellectual beat-downs. Maybe you can get 75% of people to whine with you, thereby making you correct.
Popularity is not an indicator of validity or invalidity. If science operated on this assumption, we'd still be thinking the Sun revolved around the Earth... hell, we might still be rubbing two sticks together.
And right on cue, we're back to the chandelier fairy argument. You're hilarious, grizzled. You already brought up this ludicrously silly argument on page 11 of this very same thread. You looked foolish then, too.
He brought it up in another thread too, claiming something about people running out of a building yelling "fire" would be sufficient evidence to prove the building was on fire... it's really frustrating to talk to someone who 1) has no concept of the scientific method and 2) doesn't understand the difference between necessary and sufficient or belief and proof.
Do you believe, then, that if lots of people believe something then the opposite must be true? Where’s the logic in that? I hope what you were trying to say is that just because lots of people believe in something doesn’t necessarily make it true. That statement is true, but it is absolutely true that if more people believe something it is more likely to be true. There has to be a reason why so many people share this belief, and the most likely reason is that there is some truth to it. I think you’re mixing up on the concepts of likelihood and certainty here.
Well, I thought it was logical to assume there must be something beyond the capacity of man to harness, a supernatural and coordinated Creator of some kind. That's the logic part. I have made it pretty clear though that what that something is...that is totally arbitrary. Which is why I have no problem with pink unicorns and God being a raptor to be honest.
The Cultural Revolution was a secular movement. Those who carried it out said they were secular and their goal was to destroy religion and establish an atheistic society.
That's exactly what I was trying to say, but unfortunately you didn't read my entire post. I believe that what lots of people believe could be true, but I'm not going to accept it as true just because a lot of people believe it, nor am I more likely to accept it either. I believe what I find most believable, not what everyone else finds believable. No, people believing something doesn't make it more likely. What a horribly unscientific and narrow-minded concept. If I'm a teacher and I instruct my young, impressionable, raw minded students who have never thought of these concepts that the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) created the universe, and I continue to push this narrative throughout their lives, they are going to believe in the FSM. If there are opposing viewpoints out there and I instruct them that they are false, and that those who believe opposing viewpoints will go to the FSM's purgatory for all eternity (as an example to discourage such belief), they're likely to continue believing in the FSM anyway. Humans believe the narrative driven into them by their peers, parents, and instructors. It's conceivable that such a narrative is false. It is conceivable that such a narrative is true. Neither is more likely than the other as neither has any proof behind it. I suppose it's a fundamentally different way of thinking between me and you. I try not to have a lemming-style group mentality, which does sometimes do a disservice to me, but I like to think it's a better way of thinking. It may not be, and I could be proven wrong, go to Hell, and suffer for all eternity. And yes, I am one of those damned on-the-fence agnostic types.
They borrowed a lot of principles from the Russian Revolutions. Mainly, remove the shackles of religion plus the current social order and install a rational utopia. Because our minds tend to group and label things, it quickly became the us vs. them, strong vs. weak conflicts that eliminating religion was supposed to weed out.
If you think that the idea of God is comparable to the idea of Leprechauns or Unicorns then I think you are instigating. I get your point, but it isn't constructive. This argument, from a believer's point of view, is obtuse, if not inflammatory and even blasphemous. Again, do you have to upset/accost others to have your beliefs? Must others think like you for you to feel right? This argument can be pointed at either side. To answer the OP... why? Just read the thread. You'll see why. And it could be posed to the other side as well, with the same thread posts.
