Absolutely not. A person is not allowed to argue without pointing out logical inconsistencies of the opposing side?
I read your post, and you didn’t say that, buty I’ll take your word that that’s what you meant. As far as your personal beliefs go, how you make them is not the question. Scientifically the more evidence there is to support a given theory the more “proved” it is. Nothing is 100% certain. From a scientific perspective this is not a black and white issue. When 75% of the planet believes in something that can’t be random, however. There has to be something to it. You’d need to do more studies to dig more into what it means, but you can say with virtual certainty that it’s not a coincidence that 75% of the people on earth believe in God. And again, whatever your personal beliefs are is another matter entirely. No one has said anything about going to hell and suffering for all eternity here. You are projecting some kind of personal issue onto this discussion. You clearly have some strong feelings about that and until you deal with them I doubt that you’ll be able to deal with this issue. Just make sure that you’re not the lemming being misled by a few agenda driven individuals. The logic here is really very basic and very obvious and you can get back to it at any time. As a final point, note that that apart from strongly suggesting that there is a god, that 75% number doesn’t tell you anything about who it or they might be. That number includes different religions and many different denominations. The only question we’re dealing with here is the question of whether a god or gods exist.
If time is quantized and a planck time is the smallest amount possible, then you cannot take a further "quantum" of it. this whole argument is ridiculous. He sucks at quantum mechanics, end of story.
Acknowledged and agreed. There are ways to debate that are neither insulting nor condescending. I can tell that most of us in here are regular folk and what we believe about "cosmik debris" would not impinge on how we treat each other in real life. I actually had a similar sentiment in my original post but edited it out. I have a tendency to get wordy and preachy and force myself to self-edit. Unfortunately, when debating religion, by it's very faith-based nature, there is no logical way to defend it. I think it is a futile exercise and just begs for a bad outcome. I find semantic masturbation unsatisfying. Sheesh, I always find myself defending positions that I do not even believe.
my spiral downward toward hell has been pretty fast - started questioning at 19, secretly agnostic since 2008, decided in february of 2009 i was definitely a non-theist, did a lot of thinking, reading, and research over the past year, and have come to the conclusion i am an atheist. considering i was a devout ultra-conservative fundamental christian throughout childhood and my teenage years, the word "atheist" (and all it's evil connotations) is still settling in.
Ugh, I knew you'd take that the wrong way... I tried to avoid it by clearly saying I'm just using it as an example of a potential method to deter belief in an opposing viewpoint. There are other deterrents, and that's just one. Obviously, I cannot continue to discuss this with you because there's obviously not a shared understanding of being open-minded or shared intent to try to understand the others' viewpoint.
i definitely agree with you here. i guess what it boils down to is, "do you value logic?" some don't, some are passionate about it. to each their own.
There is something to it, but I don't think it has to be: "Because God exists and he has created within us an impulse to believe in him." I can't rule that out as a possibility, but even if a supernatural "God" did not exist it still makes sense to me that the God concept would be so pervasive. You don't agree?
This thing blew up! If any of you theists, anti-atheists or whatever you call yourselves ever meet me in real life all you will probably get from me is a beer and some poor attempts at humor. If you bring up god I will probably casually agree to disagree. If you won't drop the subject I will probably reluctantly take you up on the debate. Now, if you're the ranting, angry Christian type that likes to bash other religions and you do it around me then you will probably get me even if you are not trying to directly engage me. A guy can only take so much. I'm far from the smartest or most educated guy here but I do pride myself on being consistent in my beliefs. That's all atheism is to me, applying the same critical thinking and reasoning to the potential existence of gods or the supernatural that I do to other aspects of my life.
And your proof/evidence of God not existing is... where? Calling something illogical without proof is... illogical. Creationism is illogical as there is many theories with sufficient evidence of it being false. But the existence of a deity of some sort? Perhaps a deity that created the singularity that expanded in the Big Bang? Where's the evidence to call that illogical? Why would believing that deity is of the form of a unicorn illogical? My issue here is that you are potentially calling belief in a deity illogical when there's no evidence to make such a claim, thus insinuating such a thing is a bit rude because it gives zero credit to that belief without any reason. On the same token, there's no evidence to claim that believing in a deity is the logical conclusion, either, so claiming atheism as illogical is silly and combative as well.
ehh, we haven't really broached the subject yet. which is quite unfortunate, because it's not something i'm looking forward to.
No, the 75% doesn't in any way suggest the existence of any god. Your chandelier example is a bad analogy because its presence is falsifiable. God's isn't. Therefore, the latter is not a matter of science, and its popularity (or anything else) does not constitute scientific evidence of its existence. Falsifiability is a precondition to a proposition's scientificity. You have conceded that science is concerned with the likelihood that various propositions are true. You cannot determine the likelihood that a proposition is true without determining whether that proposition's null hypothesis--the proposition that the original proposition is false--is itself likely to be false. Otherwise, you risk finding yourself in the paradox of something being both likely true and likely false.
I don't know if you have some past grudge with this poster, but your choice to interpret his meaning in that way and to dismiss his post with "You suck at quantum mechanics" would seem to indicate that is the case. I understand the point he was conveying, and it seems pretty clear that he wasn't saying you could have a quantum of a quantum of time. Maybe he misunderstood what the term "Planck time" means, or maybe he just misspoke -- either way it doesn't really have any bearing on the point he was making. So the "you suck at quantum mechanics" remark isn't helpful to the discussion.
I work with a guy (well, I sit near a guy) who is an athiest, and knows that I am Christian. He overheard me talking about a church event on my cell phone, and said he couldn't understand how I could ever go to a church. He said I'm naive, a follower, and live a life of fear and thats the only reason why anyone would ever worship a god. And I say to him, "Cool. I guess we disagree". And then he said I'm a smug a-hole, who thinks I'm better than him because I believe in some "god". And I said, "Okay, if thats what you think I guess you really don't want to be friends with me" and I leave him alone. And the guy gets mad at me. Makes no sense. If he has pre-conceived notions about "religious people", founded or not, don't make assumptions about me and my beliefs when you don't know me. I agree with you, Dave_78, and certainly recognize that it goes both ways. I've had friends for years that were athiests, and we have maybe discussed a belief in a god once or twice. Basically, I say this is what I believe, this is why, he says he doesn't get it, and its not logical. Then, halftime is over and the game starts. It can be civil, and it should be.
I suppose I should have expected this argument. I've seen it before. Yes, you cannot prove something doesn't exist. I suppose it's simply a fundamental difference between you and I. I'm not going to call an entire sector of population illogical because they believe in something that cannot be proven as existing. I suppose that's the operative word, isn't it? Belief. Faith. Such things don't require proof, nor are they illogical. If a cancer patient said: "I believe my cancer will go into remission" with no evidence of it doing so, I'm not going to say "you're being illogical." People predicate themselves on their belief in a God, just like the cancer patient is predicating himself on his belief his cancer will go into remission, and to call such a fundamental belief illogical is, IMO, "prickish". But again, I suppose this is where we differ. Again though, let me state, I have no religion, I just choose not to mock those who believe in a deity of some sort. I will, however, mock those that loudly declare everyone else as wrong, despite their stance not having any evidence (and none of these stances do). Keep your beliefs to yourself, and don't mock others for having theirs if they're not mocking yours. To wrap it all up (since obviously I have nothing I want to debate other than that everyone should be tolerant of what everyone else believes, and there are bad eggs on all sides) and answer the question posed in the thread topic: All sides grief each other, but atheists get most of the grief because they are the minority.
