General

[davidwirth]

Originally Posted by John Satclaire

David, even the briefest of glances through this thread convinces me that such is not the case for most posters.

[davidwirth]

Originally Posted by Walking_Target

now for everybody else: Don't feed the troll...

Come on, I tried to take the thread back with my post about the little factory workers going postal and building little weapons to kill each other. Just think if these things start in bio and nano med. what will happen if we get opposing forces in the left and right side of the brain? I will tell you there will be a at the OK cortex

[LoneWolf]

No, this is the beginning of SkyNet!

ROOMBA!

[Listessa]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf

No, this is the beginning of SkyNet!

ROOMBA!

Those things do freak me out!

[agentSmith]

No where did I say that I 'believe there is no god'; I most carefully stated that the statistical probability of existence was so vanishingly small that it amounted to the same thing and then, even if there were such a being, you're only pushing the argument back a generation. Ok - there's a superbeing that created us and the universe. Who/what created the superbeing?

Of course you didn't SAY it, that was my point. "The statistical probability of existence was so vanishingly small that it amounted to the same thing"????? That sentence alone smells 'to high heaven'(should there turn out to be such a thing) of someone using the terminology of science to justify an irrational belief. Naturally you don't believe me, if you knew you were doing it, or more importantly that I could tell, you would've been slicker, that's all.

You're busted as a believer by the things you DIDN'T say, but tried to imply. Plus you used the imagined superiority your background gives in the written word to try to browbeat people with vinegar and acid instead of logically and calmly presenting your points.
Why would a writer who seems to have been calm enough to survive this long, suddenly go on a nut and insult a majority of the people on a forum he seems to enjoy visiting? Because he knows his arguments are weak and his position is just a pose, so he's trying to scare people off replying with vehemence.

If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with BS.

There's a telling quote of how my poor little intellect has interpreted the steaming load of poo you've shoveled in this thread, you don't need to answer me- but examine yourself privately for hypocrisy often and you'll be a better person.

At it's best, IMO, religion gives people rules for living that are better than what they'd learn going to your charm school by far.
My personal opinion is that children 'do good' because they fear their parents will punish them, but grownups do the right thing simply because it's the right thing to do.
A person who develops all the way to real adulthood will not need to have the threat of punisshment in the afterlife to do good, he'll do it because as the gamer's would say, it gives him reputation and faction. A person who doesn't develop all the way will need to have a substitute for the threatening parents, so they'll either get a religion or get bitter like you seem to have.
I try to be kinder to other folks than they are to me, because as a member of the group 'people', being a good citizen will mean I can rely on some goodwill once in a while.


The only threat to my non-religious status was Robert Heinlein's idea that 'God split himself into many parts that he might have friends, so we can't find god because you are god and I am god and the rocks and trees and air are all god, there was nothing else but god, so nothing else to make anything out of.' The beauty of this is that you then praise god by not being a jerk to your fellow man or yourself, but it requires no illogical leaps of faith or ritual and even completely allows my favorite hobby science, because WE ARE GOD.

a good story anyway...

Getting slowly onto the subject, one of my favorite Sci-fi novels 'Commodore at sea' by A. Bertram Chandler had 'Purcell Navigators' in surface ships adopting their shipyards and taking a swipe at their rivals when they could avoid damaging themselves. Those 'John Grimes' books are interesting, written about a character's whole life in no particular order with no inconsistencies by a guy who was at the time captaining a freighter between australia and New Zealand, GREAT READS!!!


Rob

[stevedavidson]

you don't seem to be able to 'handle the truth'.

but you do like Chandler, so you can't be all that bad.

(I've got the rights to his works btw - letting other people write in his universe and reprints...)

I meant what I said. I don't 'believe' anything in the blind faith sense of the word. I can use the word conversationally - I believe this lightbulb is a working one - but that's as far as it goes.

I have no problem separating 'belief' based on the best evidence so far - with the full knowledge that new information can change that belief - and belief based on faith - conviction based on no evidence.

The preponderance of the evidence examined thus far - the overwhelming amount of data - supports the theory that we, the universe and everything in it came about as a result of natural laws and, once we sufficiently understand the mechanisms behind it, will not require a resort to supernatural explanations.

I'm sorry if the reality bothers you, but sometimes you have to say 'the emporer has no clothes'; religious believers have been tolerated and deferred to for far too long and my personal BELIEF is that we would all be much better off without it.

[John Satclaire]

Let's just end this silliness, shall we?

[1] Logic--or science, if you prefer--can only make descriptive statements (e.g., "X change in the density of Y volume of mercury indicates that the liquid is at a temperature of Z degrees Kelvin," or "the distance between points A and B is C inches").

[2] Per Moore's naturalistic fallacy, one cannot use logic or science to go from a descriptive statement of the world to a normative statement of the world (i.e., there is no logical way to get "X is true, so Y ought to be the case"). Put a better way, Hume's Is-Ought fallacy proves that it's turtles all the way down.

[3] From [1] and [2], it's pretty clear that science cannot answer many questions that human beings find themselves asking: what is good, what is bad, what should be illegal, what is the point of life, from where did the universe come, etc ad nauseam. This is not a flaw, but simply an inherent limitation.

QED, if you have an opinion on anything... it's based on an irrational belief.

[Mar]

Originally Posted by John Satclaire

Let's just end this silliness, shall we?

[1] Logic--or science, if you prefer--can only make descriptive statements (e.g., "X change in the density of Y volume of mercury indicates that the liquid is at a temperature of Z degrees Kelvin," or "the distance between points A and B is C inches").

[2] Per Moore's naturalistic fallacy, one cannot use logic or science to go from a descriptive statement of the world to a normative statement of the world (i.e., there is no logical way to get "X is true, so Y ought to be the case"). Put a better way, Hume's Is-Ought fallacy proves that it's turtles all the way down.

[3] From [1] and [2], it's pretty clear that science cannot answer many questions that human beings find themselves asking: what is good, what is bad, what should be illegal, what is the point of life, from where did the universe come, etc ad nauseam. This is not a flaw, but simply an inherent limitation.

QED, if you have an opinion on anything... it's based on an irrational belief.

One of the theories presented to the religious by science in some olive-branch-like fashion is NOMA, which I disagree with. I do believe what you typed above seems clear and accurate, but one point I didn't see I would like to add is that there are things presented as fact by religion(s) that have been disproven by science, will be disproven by science, or may be in the future.

I haven't seen you around, nice to make your aquaintance, and welcome to MCB. Nice post!

[John Satclaire]

Originally Posted by Mar

NOMA, which I disagree with.

I don't mind letting the religious play in the ethical sandbox, so long as they're willing to fully explain their arguments for what ought to be. Unfortunately, that all too frequently ends in a citation to some form of scripture.

[Christian Nelson]

I don't mind letting the religious play in the ethical sandbox, so long as they're willing to fully explain their arguments for what ought to be. Unfortunately, that all too frequently ends in a citation to some form of scripture.

If you don't mind my asking, what else would you propose for them to use as an authority to end the line of questioning? In other words, if you cannot use a precedent, or unchanging (even semi unchanging) set of rules, what keeps you from just making it up as you go along, to suit your whim of the moment?

Right and wrong have definitions for most people. UNfortunately, they don't always line up exactly. Therefore, if one wants to not neccisarily give you a 5 year talk about what they believe in a nutshell, why not alow them to use an identifiable set of rules most people have at least some idea about, and that as a start, you can develop from there a picture of what that person thinks.

I guess I don't understand what the problem is with someone who believes what is written in a book using that same book to describe what the ideal they believe should be.

Kinda like asking someone to give you info on some mathematical equation without incorperating any math..