The Atheist Thread

Heavyfreight wrote:   I repeat what I said at the start; Large organised religion can do a lot of good but it is all too easy for it to be hijacked by manipulative leaders or used as an excuse for inhuman behavior by one group against another.  I may be a cynic but I think that Frank Zappa had it about right when it came to organised religion.

that has, however, nothing whatever to do with atheism. you can reject the large organised religions without being an atheist

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Mathematics is normally more comforting, because everything (Or almost everything) can be explained

Explaining is a big word , I think what you mean is that everything is provable. There is a certain set of axioms that do not need to prove since we just 'take them' and then start to build mathematics out of them. Everything follows from itself.

Do note that the proofs themselves, however, are often the most incomprehensible part of math. Pure geniuses worked on those... The amount of things other people wouldn't even have come up with is amazing.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: BaldFriede wrote: This is a well known antinomy called "The Barber's Dilemma". Consider the following: The barber in a village shaves all men, and only those men, who don't shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself? If he does not shave himself, he can't be the barber, because the barber shaves all men who don't shave themselves. But if he shaves himself, he can't be the barber either, because he only shaves those men who DON'T shave themselves. This may sound silly, but it was one of the most confounding problems for mathematicians in the 20th century. This antinomy was solved by Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Please don't ask me to explain it to you, at least not in public; it is a little complicated and would bore most people to death. Feel free to send me a PM though.   Isn't that one the most popular variation of Russell's Paradox?   Let M be "the set of all sets that do not contain themselves as members". Formally: A is an element of M if and only if A is not an element of A.   Or the even simpler "Being that God is omnipotent, can he make a rock so big that he can't move it?"   I was thinking in this paradox or contradiction (X = ~X) this afternoon.   I remember studying it in Pre University.   Iván

Yes, it is also called "Russell's antinomy". I just didn't want to put it into mathematical words. Many people already start running if they only hear the word "mathematics".


Edited by BaldFriede - January 27 2007 at 23:31

JrKASperov wrote: BaldJean wrote: I would also like to quote Augustinus, who addressed this topic long before you and said: "It is a sin to believe that God is not omnipotent because he can't do the impossible", only I would replace "sin" with "fallacy" I've thought about this lately, and the most satisfactory answer I can give is this: God is omnipotent, and He can do everything. This includes making or creating things that He cannot 'do'. Then He can both not do that and do that at the same time. "But how can someone both be able and not be able to do something?!" you say? The answer is: He's omnipotent. He can everything, including this.

This is a well known antinomy called "The Barber's Dilemma". Consider the following: The barber in a village shaves all men, and only those men, who don't shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself? If he does not shave himself, he can't be the barber, because the barber shaves all men who don't shave themselves. But if he shaves himself, he can't be the barber either, because he only shaves those men who DON'T shave themselves. This may sound silly, but it was one of the most confounding problems for mathematicians in the 20th century. This antinomy was solved by Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Please don't ask me to explain it to you, at least not in public; it is a little complicated and would bore most people to death. Feel free to send me a PM though.

Heavyfreight wrote:   Exactly my point.  Often the power of religious leaders.  I'm not saying that religion is the only reason that these conflicts happen, but it's very often a good excuse.   Religion is visible, that's all, look at White Supremacy movements, ETA, the anihilation of the native Americans, the KKK, Apartheid, etc, it's all HATE and nothing else, no religious component there   Religion is one of 1,000 facts    By the way, the way I understand it the UK government would quite like a united Ireland now but a significant proportion of the residents, who cite religious reasons amongst others, do not wish this to happen.  Progress does appear to be being made now, albeit slowly.   One question, there are hundreed of countries with Religious minorities and they exist, are the Irish so primtive that they are the only country in the world that is unable to survive with two religions by their own?   Why a King should be the head of a religion? Isn't a separation state - Church necessary?   No it's not a Religion fight for power is England trying to keep control  a different nation using a Religious minority as an excuse.    Let the Irish decide their fate and stop all this violence, it's about time.   Yes the current Israel question is not purely religious but the conflict also existed in Biblical times, long before the creation of the current state of Israel.   In the case of Israel is purely a land issue, the fact that both countries have different religions and belong to a different ETHNIA makes it worst.   Neil.   Iván

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - January 27 2007 at 15:03

inpraiseoffolly wrote: What this means is that God has limits, which means that God is not supernatural. Thus, the whole concept of a supernatural God is an oxymoron.

you don't mean "oxymoron", you don't even mean "paradox", you mean "self-contradiction". let me explain the two terms "oxymoron" and "paradox".

an oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two seemingly contradicting terms are combined to form a new term. thus an oxymoron only appears to be a contradiction, but instead creates a completely new term which makes complete sense. an example is "bittersweet". I have no idea why so many people confuse the two terms "oxymoron" and "self-contradiction", by the way.

a paradox is an apparently true statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition. typically, either the statements in question do not really imply the contradiction, the puzzling result is not really a contradiction, or the premises themselves are not all really true or cannot all be true together. the word "paradox" is often used interchangeably and wrongly with "contradiction"; but whereas a contradiction asserts its own opposite, many paradoxes do allow for resolution of some kind. (taken from wikipedia)

I would also like to quote Augustinus, who addressed this topic long before you and said: "It is a sin to believe that God is not omnipotent because he can't do the impossible", only I would replace "sin" with "fallacy"

That's right Ivnord, if Religion wasn't there, there will be ethnic or racial problems or even sports, anything is an excuse for violence.

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - January 26 2007 at 21:41

Heavyfreight wrote:   No, I personally would place money on the fact that there is no superior being controlling my (or your) life; therefore I'm aetheist. I cannot prove it however so would not claim that I "know" that there isn't a god.   Well, you are a negative agnostic but that's a technicism, the point is that God doesn't control our world IMO, he gives us live and we decide what to do with it, I don't believe in determinism.   Without free will there's no achievement in having a moral life.  Of course I respect and love my parents, but I don't worship them and would not blindly obey them. Why do you feel the need to worship something that you do not even know exists?   You can talk with your parents directly face to face, you can't talk with God face to face, ceremonies are mostly a sign of respect and nothing more. We don't go to mass to see what we can get, we should go to mass because we feel comfortable being in contact with our Church.  Why is it then that we so often hear people referring to an event as "the will of god"?   It's mostly a saying, a form we find to comfort ourselves from problems, everything can't be the will of God exclusively because then free will wouldn't exist.  The ten commandments for instance are a good moral code for living, drawn up by the elders and wise men of that time. Basic sensible rules that prevent anarchy. If we live our lives along these lines then that's great. If you believe in God then that's fine and that's your choice but it's the fact that you believe in the Catholic Church that worries me.   Well, it doesn't worry me, as any human institution, the Catholic Church has made mistakes and terrible ones but the Pope personally has appologized for what his predeccessors did, so there's an ammendment intention.    You will disagree with this because you believe but to someone like me (and to msny others) the Catholic Church is a large, self serving organisation that controls masses of people through fear and indoctrination. Which leads on to the next point:   Yes, it's a very positive COMMUNITY despite the mistakes that every human institution will make. You always get fanatics, lets ignore them. I'm on about the masses being swayed and controlled by their particular religion.   Controlled what? They can even have the Churches full every Sunday, 56% of the Catholic marriages end in divorce, near 80% of the Catholics use condoms and a a lower but still high percentage has participated in an abortion, there's no control at all.   Take Northern Ireland for instance: The protestants fighting the catholics and most of the violence stirred up by religious leaders.   Well, for some people it's an authonoomy war, England has control of a nation that should be independent (Let the majority decide), I don't agree with violence or any form of terrorism, but this is a political war, Religion is only a small part of it and the Religious part was started for the pressure placed over Irish Catholics by England.   There is violence from both sides, but it is POLITICAL essentially.   Now both these are branches of Christianity and supposedly worship the same god so why are their leaders causing them to fight. Political power between the leaders of the two religious groups, that's why.   No, it's a fight between the Crown (As a broad term) and the people of Ireland, the fact that both parts have different religions only makes it worst, but that's not the central issue.   The central issue is that a part of Ireland (I believe the majority) doesn't want England there any more and England wants to stay.   Look at the muslims and jews in palestine and tell me that organised religion isn't used to control the masses for political or tyranical ends.   That's a war for land please, the UN gave Israel a territory occupied by another nation and the Palestines don't want them there, THAT'S ALL, religion is another component but not the main one. (I won't enter in the debate if this was a correct or incorrect decision by the UN, honestly I have good friends from both communities who live in peace in my country without any violence).   Go further back and look at the crusades, or missionaries and the methods that they used. Not very Christian at all really. Already I have stated that the Church accepts their faults and asked forgiveness for this, how many more centuries more do you want us to beg for pardon.   I hate that guilt for past mistakes  Ok, an error or a crime has been commited by our ancestors, we appologize, try to solve the problems, but go on with your live, still in the 40 century some people will stoill mention the Inquisition, it's absurd.   It was a mistake, the Pope personally accepted the sins of the Church and asked for forgivenes, that's all, the ones who did that are dead for centuries, go on!!!!!  Most of the above has little to do with whether or not you believe and mine or your thoughts on Michael Jackson's innocence are irrelevant. Has a lot to do, because the central point of Sean is that the organized religions don't have control over the fanatics (Yes, fanatics was always the point, nobody is scared of the civil people and I share Sean's fear for the fundamentalists), and my point is that society is the one who should stop this acts, and they are failling in their attempt in a misserable way all around the world allowing abuse of the criminals (Religious, atheists, paedophiles, homicides, etc) and trying to place more control over the honest people. The above are just my personal views. I am basically an honest person with a very logical and scientific mind.   I consider myself the same    I am quite prepared to change my views if I receive conclusive proof that a god exists but I have not in my whole 41 years seen or heard anything that makes me believe that a god exists.   I believe I received conclusive proves in my souil that God exists, which are as justified as your disbelieve, because none of us has scientific evidence.   I have however seen much in human nature that explains the existance of organised religion and the reasons behind it. That's human nature, not God.   Iván

inpraiseoffolly wrote: Outlawing abortion won't stop abortion, it'll just make it more dangerous.  So, not only is abortion ok, outlawing it only furthers the problem.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: IVNORD wrote: Sean Trane wrote: . >> we discussed this 18 months ago and I believe that like most catholics you strongly disapprove Vatican's radical positions on abortions and euthanasia, but if I remember well, you want the exceptions to be exceptional Sorry for the delay, just seen this ones. I'm radically against the euthanasia being that the human being is interested and may be able to allow the death of a person for greed or lust, I believe we should fight until there's no chance.   I admit the suspension of dysthanasia and this is avoiding the use of heroic messures to save a life that is no more a life (Artificial ventilation for example), in other words inaction in the case of a person that without artificial help wouldn't survive.   But IMHO no person should use active methods to end a live of a patient while the person can stay alive without external help. Iván      Ivan, You’re basically a pro-life guy who allows a couple of exceptions in the case. As prudent as you are by using condoms, what would be your position in case of a defective condom? Will you allow an abortion if the pregnancy is accidental?   If it's in my hand, I would never agree with an abortion, if I'm man enough to have sex I need to be man enough to accept the consequences of my acts, even if this are not planified.   But it's not my decision according to the laws (At least in USA, here it's illegal in most cases) but I seen cases of young couples who have sex without any precaution with the confidence that if something happens, there's always a doctor willing to make an abortion.   The life of a phoetus is not a game to play with.   Iván