Theism vs. Atheism ... will it ever be settled?

CCVP wrote: I can't precisely explain that because the explaqnation basically uses a lot of psychological stuff which i am not very familiar with. However, the basic idea of the thing is that the human mind cannot truely understand things, most of times we simply believe that what we do is right and go on with our lives. These are the so-called dogmas. We believe that math is exact and, because of it's suposed precision, we use it as the basic mean or method to explain things in nature (scientific method, etc). like it or not, many of the postulades in math simply uses dogmas as their starting point, exactly like religion, and everybody seem to be fine with it. How is that so very different from religion? It simply is not. It is just more socially acceptable to believe in scientific dogmas with no explanation whatsoever than believe in religious dogmas.

So your argument is that we can't know anything really, so any position requires faith. Sounds a lot like post-modernism to me, and I disagree completely. We believe that math is exact because we can observe that it works. Planes fly because the world we live in is subject to a set of fundamental physical principles which we can rely on - it doesn't take faith to trust that these laws will be the same tomorrow as they are today. We simply have no good reason to believe otherwise.

CCVP wrote: Same thing with atheism. There are many, many ways to explain why God does no exist. Some just go like "f**k it, i don't care" and some do have some arguments. The ones that do have arguments must use dogmas to back your claims, even if they are so back on your train of thought (or of the persond that DID thought that) that they simply do not matter at this point, so they are seen as rational and precise, despite the fact that they used the same method of thinking as the ones they are trying to debunk. The main difference is that science and theories that try to bakc up atheism is that science do have some kind of aplication beyond personal enlightment or personal world view, one of the many conducting points of both atheism and religion.

Atheism is not a positive claim that "God doesn't exist". It's the rejection of the claim that God does exist. There is no scientific evidence for such claims. An Atheist simply says "leave me alone with all these conflicting God claims until there is some reason to believe that any of them are true". That is not something that I need to back up.

Does it require faith for you to not believe in Leprechauns? Of course not. The point is that Theists apply the approach which I laid out above to most problems they face in real life - just not to their religion. This is what I refer to as "special pleading".

BTW: Science is not required to back up Atheism - Atheism is primarily a logical, abstract argument. It is the general principle of Skepticism applied to God claims. The burden of proof lies on the one who is making the claim, and since sometimes Theists try to use science to proof God (Creationists do it all the time), science can be used to debunk those types of arguments.

CCVP wrote: There are much other things that need to be said, but I really don't have the scholar preparation to do so, but you can go all day long (literally) puting those two together as similar things. At  the end of the day, the best thing that can illustrate this is the popular horseshoe theory: the opposites are closer with eachother than with the core/center. Hope that it won't be a non-answer. Edit: I'm not saying I don't believe in scienve nor that i am a creationist or something like it (I do have a critical sense, you know), just questioning  things.

Everybody "believes" in science - even Creationists use computers, airplanes or electricity generated by nuclear fission. It doesn't require faith, since we can demonstrate that it works. Post-modernists can claim that we can't really know anything, but that is not a reasonable position in a debate since it means that you essentially can't say anything - you have no position. Which takes me back to the first sentence of this paragraph - even Post-Modernists take our world for granted in their daily lives. There is no faith required to believe that tomorrow the sun will still exist.

CCVP wrote: I can't precisely explain that because the explaqnation basically uses a lot of psychological stuff which i am not very familiar with. However, the basic idea of the thing is that the human mind cannot truely understand things, most of times we simply believe that what we do is right and go on with our lives. These are the so-called dogmas. We believe that math is exact and, because of it's suposed precision, we use it as the basic mean or method to explain things in nature (scientific method, etc). like it or not, many of the postulades in math simply uses dogmas as their starting point, exactly like religion, and everybody seem to be fine with it. How is that so very different from religion? It simply is not. It is just more socially acceptable to believe in scientific dogmas with no explanation whatsoever than believe in religious dogmas. Same thing with atheism. There are many, many ways to explain why God does no exist. Some just go like "f**k it, i don't care" and some do have some arguments. The ones that do have arguments must use dogmas to back your claims, even if they are so back on your train of thought (or of the persond that DID thought that) that they simply do not matter at this point, so they are seen as rational and precise, despite the fact that they used the same method of thinking as the ones they are trying to debunk. The main difference is that science and theories that try to bakc up atheism is that science do have some kind of aplication beyond personal enlightment or personal world view, one of the many conducting points of both atheism and religion. There are much other things that need to be said, but I really don't have the scholar preparation to do so, but you can go all day long (literally) puting those two together as similar things. At  the end of the day, the best thing that can illustrate this is the popular horseshoe theory: the opposites are closer with eachother than with the core/center. Hope that it won't be a non-answer. Edit: I'm not saying I don't believe in scienve nor that i am a creationist or something like it (I do have a critical sense, you know), just questioning  things.

I like the cut of yer jib young matey and do approve of where I think you're going with this: i.e. is something like the hitherto sacrosanct (=) sign in mathematics tantamount to scientific enquiry's leap of
faith ?.

Can the 'presumption' that two things in the world are identical in every known attribute be demonstrably shown to be true beyond the expedient of 'for all practical purposes' ? (I want to see the baby photos of the snowflake's identical twins y'all)

CCVP wrote: You got me wrong. it is not that we can't know things, it is just that this is the way we leard. Do you know how many thing you have to repeat one thing untill you really learn it? That is the time it takes untill the brain "get" that specific dogma. Not post modernism, just how the brain works.

Why would you call something a "dogma" when you can test whether it's true? Maybe you were talking about something else, but you explicitly said "scientific dogmas". Let's take as an example the theory of gravity. Do you think that this is somehow dogmatic and requires faith to believe in?

CCVP wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: it doesn't take faith to trust that these laws will be the same tomorrow as they are today. We simply have no good reason to believe otherwise. Says you. Nothing in nature is imutable, and so is science. If you take those things for granted it means you believe them dogmatcally. Don't ask questions because it will always be like that, right? Sounds like fundamentalism to me. Besides, the exporation of the universe has shown us that most of the laws of physics are only applyed the way we do in Earth. Science isn't perfect exactly because it isn't good enough to explai reality. It formats itself to the things it face and to belive it is imutable takes a lot of guts (and faith, especially).

You really believe that we can't be sure of anything - and with this kind of attitude I don't see how you could  participate in a meaningful way in discussions about the world. My answer would be that some things are more likely to be true than others. The fact that we cannot be absolutely sure does not mean that it requires faith to take some aspects of the world for granted based on our experience, and until there is sufficient reason to believe otherwise.

BTW: Another way of saying this would be that I could agree that it takes faith, but I would say that for most scientific claims the amount of faith that is required would be infinitely small.

CCVP wrote: Serious question now: if you just wish to be left alone,  why in the f**king hell did you even bother to make such thread? I'm really, REALLY angry right now. you don't even imagine. Just threw my day in the god damn toilet. Nice damn trolling.

I'm trying to have a discussion. If you get angry whenever I have a problem with your arguments, then maybe you should stay out of the discussion. Your underlying premise seems to be that everyone may be right, so nobody can really disagree with anyone else, since any discussion is really dogma vs. dogma. Like I said above: This disqualifies you from any meaningful discussion, so why bother in the first place?

CCVP wrote: EDIT: threw two days down the toilet, since it's more than 6 am and i still haven't slept. Oh god, I seriously could punch you right now.

Maybe you should visit anger management classes - and stay out of discussions if you can't handle when someone disagrees with you.

No, let me clarify it for you: if you wish to be left alone, you don't start discussions on the subject that that bothers you, okay? Even more if you are absolutely not in the mindset of changing your opinion, which is obviously your case. I was trying to have a nice argument and then THIS? It is like a spoled child who runs to his mother to complain about a dog that bit him just because he struck him with a led pipe.

And by the way i am not angry because you dissagree with me, i am an gry because you started a damn long thread and all along you wish to be left alone. This is the kind of thing that get people in trouble in the real world.

I rest my case and may you find somebody masochistic enough to be willing to have a conversation with mister "talk to me with things i don't agree with and leave me alone".

CCVP wrote: No, let me clarify it for you: if you wish to be left alone, you don't start discussions on the subject that that bothers you, okay? Even more if you are absolutely not in the mindset of changing your opinion, which is obviously your case. I was trying to have a nice argument and then THIS? It is like a spoled child who runs to his mother to complain about a dog that bit him just because he struck him with a led pipe. And by the way i am not angry because you dissagree with me, i am an gry because you started a damn long thread and all along you wish to be left alone. This is the kind of thing that get people in trouble in the real world. I rest my case and may you find somebody masochistic enough to be willing to have a conversation with mister "talk to me with things i don't agree with and leave me alone".

Been there, done that!
BTW I love your profile pic man

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^^ Isn't that just what I said?

Well, no - you said we cannot observe it so we build a model and verify that model using obervation - which is a crap answer.

Dean wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^^ Isn't that just what I said? Well, no - you said we cannot observe it so we build a model and verify that model using obervation - which is a crap answer.   You still haven't actually said anything about how science can be applied to purely abstract unobservable entities like knowledge and belief, which is what Scientific Realism as a philosophical idea claims..

If you don't know what "" means, then I can't help you.

BTW: I'm not into philosophy either, and I don't care about the plethora of "official" definitions of "scientific realism" - I'm only using the term because the combination of words reflects my point of view. And in that sentence in italics you can use this modification:

" we cannot observe it [directly] so we build a model and verify that model using obervation [of the effects]"

Which kind of follows from the sum of my posts on the subject, unless you're purposely trying to misrepresent me. 


Edited by Mr ProgFreak - September 05 2010 at 05:09

Mr ProgFreak wrote: Dean wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^^ Isn't that just what I said? Well, no - you said we cannot observe it so we build a model and verify that model using obervation - which is a crap answer.   You still haven't actually said anything about how science can be applied to purely abstract unobservable entities like knowledge and belief, which is what Scientific Realism as a philosophical idea claims.. If you don't know what "" means, then I can't help you.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: My point is that whatever I said three pages ago, by now I've made more comments that when seen together make it unlikely to assume that what you quoted represents my standpoint.

Even with vegetable flavoured noodles comes a bag of grease and chili.
-> There is a god.

/thread.