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Grumpyprogfan View Drop Down
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Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

Originally posted by Grumpyprogfan Grumpyprogfan wrote:

Very thoughtful post, Greg. I agree with all of it.

There is too much suffering in the world and religious groups have caused too much war and death.

I have mentally and physically disabled sister. She is now 68 and can do nothing for herself. It's heartbreaking to watch and because I've seen this deterioration my whole life it has firmly made me an atheist.

Sorry to hear that. I'm with Stephen Fry who said something like "if there is a God why did he make a beetle that burrows in children's eyeballs?".
Thanks, Chopper. I agree with Stephen Fry's statement and the following song.
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JD View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Logan Logan wrote:

^ Sounds too much like the no true Scotsman fallacy there to me, JD, that no "true" theist believes that God could be imperfect and fallible.
I've never met one that didn't believe this.

Originally posted by Logan Logan wrote:

[EDIT]He then claimed "not true Christians".... His definition of Christian is more exclusive than mine. I find that attitude arrogant, he made it clear that he and others like him is one of the chosen and all others will be damned. Well, damn him.
Agreed, I always find it funny when I hear them (evangelicals?) say dumb 5hit like "Well they aren't really christian" or "They're the wrong kind of christian". It seems to just implode the whole concept of what christianity is supposed to be, loving, accepting, inviting.
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Originally posted by Grumpyprogfan Grumpyprogfan wrote:

Please share with us your opinion of his scale.

You are right, I have focused on other things and have given up on this thread.

Here are my views in summary.

1) Richard Dawkins is a great evolutionary scientist but his militant atheism risks hurting science because he seems to get there (atheism) starting from the theory of evolution, as if science led to atheism

2) Having said that, he has every right to do propaganda for atheism.

3) This scale seems to me quite accurate on the positions one has in favor of the existence of God or in favor of his non-existence

4) I would make some considerations of a different nature.

Step 1 and step 10 of the scale are in a certain sense equivalent, they represent those who have NO doubts, have a granite faith in God or in the NON-existence of him.
I would say that in this sense, steps 1 and 10 are made by people who have given A definitive ANSWER to the mystery of existence.

I therefore consider the atheists of step 10 to be the same as the believers of step 1. THEY ARE BOTH BELIEVERS: THEY BELIEVE IN GOD OR IN A UNIVERSE WITHOUT GOD.

On the other steps there are those who believe but have more or less doubts

As for the agnostics, which Dawkins puts 50% in favor and 50% against the idea of ​​the existence of God, I believe that another issue needs to be specified.

the agnostic, in my opinion, is usually a person who says he does NOT know. Gnosis: knowledge, A-Gnosis equal NOT knowledge.

So while the BELIEVER AND THE ATHEIST (WHO I WOULD CALL BELIEVER IN THE NON-EXISTENCE OF GOD), think they can know whether or not God exists, for agnostics the problem is insoluble, but not because they believe that probability it's fifty fifty but because the agnostic knows they can never get to the possibility of knowing.

The attitude of the agnostic, in short, as I see it, is very different from what Dawkins says, and distances itself from both atheism and believers in God. 
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I'm agnostic. And it makes no difference to me if God exits or not. The world is what it is either way.
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Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

I'm agnostic. And it makes no difference to me if God exits or not. The world is what it is either way.

Hi,

I just find it strange that we have ideas about this and that, and don't look at the "sky" and realize that it could all be gone in a second without a thought or worry about anything mankind has thought about or worried about for thousands of years ... how unimportant and worthless a lot of that gibberish would all of a sudden be ... but we have this idea that we are bigger than the universe!
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I just find it strange that after hearing the story of Mr. Redcandle, I began to believe in God.

Here is the story:

God was distributing brains to humanity. Mr. Redcandle misheard brains as drains, and he asked for a big, empty one.
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SteveG View Drop Down
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Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

I'm agnostic. And it makes no difference to me if God exits or not. The world is what it is either way.

Hi,

I just find it strange that we have ideas about this and that, and don't look at the "sky" and realize that it could all be gone in a second without a thought or worry about anything mankind has thought about or worried about for thousands of years ... how unimportant and worthless a lot of that gibberish would all of a sudden be ... but we have this idea that we are bigger than the universe!
We are all just small cogs in a big machine mosh, with some smaller than others.
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Lewian View Drop Down
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(1) According to subjectivist statistician Bruno de Finetti, probabilities should be put on future events the occurrence of which can at some point in time be evaluated (because in that case a bet can pay out that is placed according to your probabilities).

The existence of god is no such event. At no point in time can a bet on God's existence be cashed out, therefore probabilities do not apply.

(2) For sure God exists as a human idea that has implications on human actions. This looks rather trivial, however it may be questioned whether there is any better existence than this at all.

(3) As a philosophical constructivist I tend to say that God exists by means of construction for the people who construct God, i.e., their belief in God makes God exist, but I'm not one of them (which I do realise is in conflict with (2); also those who construct God probably don't want this kind of existence but rather a different one).
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JD View Drop Down
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^Lewian's Three Laws of God. Asimov would be proud. LOL
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omphaloskepsis View Drop Down
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I'm a pantheist. 
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Originally posted by omphaloskepsis omphaloskepsis wrote:

I'm a pantheist. 
Yes, we know.
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richardh View Drop Down
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I'm certainly a 2. but it doesn't give me any comfort to believe in God. I also believe in reincarnation and I don't much like that idea either. You come from somewhere and you go somewhere. It may sound ridiculous (but we're probably all or most going to be dead within 12 months the way things are going so I've not got much to lose really) but Kansas - Dust In The Wind sums up how I feel about stuff and how very little matters that is material. Someone will no doubt call me out as being 'depressed'. Probably true but I've been there a long time and cope.  
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The whole concept, including Mr. Dawkins' list is rife with anthropocentricism. The problems include:

1. A very narrow definition of sentience. 
2. A very narrow definition of animate vs inanimate.
3. A very narrow perception and attribution of scale in the scope of cosmic time and space.
4. A very narrow version of what constitutes a higher power.

As far is what I believe in the context of the god vs no god debate, the premise that God is some version of this,

, is quite laughable. 

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JD View Drop Down
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Originally posted by omphaloskepsis omphaloskepsis wrote:

I'm a pantheist. 
Is that someone who runs around without any pants on?
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Originally posted by Lewian Lewian wrote:

(1) According to subjectivist statistician Bruno de Finetti, probabilities should be put on future events the occurrence of which can at some point in time be evaluated (because in that case a bet can pay out that is placed according to your probabilities).

The existence of god is no such event. At no point in time can a bet on God's existence be cashed out, therefore probabilities do not apply.

(2) For sure God exists as a human idea that has implications on human actions. This looks rather trivial, however it may be questioned whether there is any better existence than this at all.

(3) As a philosophical constructivist I tend to say that God exists by means of construction for the people who construct God, i.e., their belief in God makes God exist, but I'm not one of them (which I do realise is in conflict with (2); also those who construct God probably don't want this kind of existence but rather a different one).


I don't know if you know this faact: in the Russia of the years between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there was the movement of the "Seekers of God" which then evolved, thanks to the writer Maksim Gorkij and the politician Anatolj Lunacarskij in the "Movement for the Construction of God ", of which the two were supporters during their stage in Italy, on the island of Capri, where they founded the Revolutionary School of Capri.

According to this movement, Bolshevism should have built a religion from below where it was the proletariat who built God. Lenin opposed this pseudo-transcendent movement.

The movement failed with the failure of the Capri school, but Gorky wrote a book about it: Confession.
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omphaloskepsis View Drop Down
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Originally posted by JD JD wrote:

Originally posted by omphaloskepsis omphaloskepsis wrote:

I'm a pantheist. 
Is that someone who runs around without any pants on?

Yes! That's it.  It is what it is, even when it isn't.






 
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Originally posted by Lewian Lewian wrote:

(1) According to subjectivist statistician Bruno de Finetti, probabilities should be put on future events the occurrence of which can at some point in time be evaluated (because in that case a bet can pay out that is placed according to your probabilities).

The existence of god is no such event. At no point in time can a bet on God's existence be cashed out, therefore probabilities do not apply.


Hmm... according to Pascals Wager a bet on the existence of God can be/is cashed out on death.
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Lewian View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Hugh Manatee Hugh Manatee wrote:

Originally posted by Lewian Lewian wrote:

(1) According to subjectivist statistician Bruno de Finetti, probabilities should be put on future events the occurrence of which can at some point in time be evaluated (because in that case a bet can pay out that is placed according to your probabilities).

The existence of god is no such event. At no point in time can a bet on God's existence be cashed out, therefore probabilities do not apply.


Hmm... according to Pascals Wager a bet on the existence of God can be/is cashed out on death.

But what do you do with the cash then? Tongue (I actually know what Pascal thought he could do with it... let's hope for him that he was right... but even then subjective probability doesn't work with an infinite payout, as Pascal had in mind.)
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Lewian View Drop Down
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Originally posted by jamesbaldwin jamesbaldwin wrote:


I don't know if you know this faact: in the Russia of the years between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there was the movement of the "Seekers of God" which then evolved, thanks to the writer Maksim Gorkij and the politician Anatolj Lunacarskij in the "Movement for the Construction of God ", of which the two were supporters during their stage in Italy, on the island of Capri, where they founded the Revolutionary School of Capri.

According to this movement, Bolshevism should have built a religion from below where it was the proletariat who built God. Lenin opposed this pseudo-transcendent movement.

The movement failed with the failure of the Capri school, but Gorky wrote a book about it: Confession.



No, I didn't know this. Very nice!
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Hugh Manatee View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Lewian Lewian wrote:

... but even then subjective probability doesn't work with an infinite payout, as Pascal had in mind.)

I'm not sure I understand what you are getting at here, i.e. your insistence that some kind of payout is necessary in order to formulate an opinion based on subjective probability. 

I wonder if you would mind expanding on this particular assertion.
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