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Mr ProgFreak View Drop Down
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 16:22
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Mr ProgFreak Mr ProgFreak wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Mr ProgFreak Mr ProgFreak wrote:

^ He is making the point about the earth being round instead of flat. Of course you can choose to ignore it and/or come up with an apology (defense) of why it's no big deal that the Bible makes such a blatantly claim about the world.
Trying to think where the bible blatantly claims the Earth is flat...
 
Ermm
 
...nope.


Think of all the verses that mention the four corners of the earth. BTW: That's also why we have four gospels in the canon.LOL
...and why we have four points on a compass?
 
I also recall the part that describes the world as a circle (often re-interpreted as sphere, but I don't buy that) - not sure I know where the four corners of a circle are geometrically speaking.
 
Today "the four corners of the Earth" is a figure of speech referring to the four cardinal points of a compass. I'm more than happy to accept that at the time of writing the bible the Hebrew scholars may have thought the earth was flat - but not that they put that blatantly in the bible. But even if they did, what difference does it make - no one who reads and believes the bible holds that the earth is a flat plane (regardless of actual boundary shape)
 
 
Originally posted by Mr ProgFreak Mr ProgFreak wrote:



Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:


Originally posted by Mr ProgFreak Mr ProgFreak wrote:


I don't agree with Dean when he says that the tools of science can not be applied to religion.
I knew you'd say that Wink 
 
Religion is not a science, even if theology has an -ology to show that it is a subject of study the subject being studied is not science so you cannot apply the scientific method to it.
 
In the past you have accused me of being an apologetic - I'm not - I make no excuses for religion or religious thinking, I just accept that it cannot be defeated with simple logic and scientific facts because it is a belief system, not an explainable, falsifiable, logical, scientific system.


Religions makes claims about the world - the Theistic God interacts with the physical world, and that's where religion becomes falsifiable.
Not sure I follow your argument - where does religion claim that god interacts with the physical world? If they claim that their gods act through them then it cannot be proven by science and is unfalsifiable.
Originally posted by Mr ProgFreak Mr ProgFreak wrote:


Another example: The soul. Many Christians claim that stem cell research is murder because the blastocyst  has a soul - but they fail to explain at which point the soul enters the fetus - or whether identical twins share a soul, or Chimera have two souls.

See? Even when the concept of "soul" is entirely metaphysical and essentially not falsifiable, religion goes a step further and makes detailed claims which can be shown to make no sense.
some christians claim, not many christians claim and certainly not all christians claim. You cannot extrapolate data in this way - it's unscientific Tongue
 
The concept of a soul is not a scientific concept no matter how you argue it and regardless of whatever claims are made by some christians - by arguing against it using scientfic methods you are giving credence to their claims that a soul exists and can be measured (21gms).


^ Good movie.

When arguing against a metaphysical concept it is sometimes necessary to argue on the basis of "even if it was true". I know what you're getting at, I simply don't agree with your conclusion. I agree that scientific arguments won't be able to reach fundamentalist Theists. IMO you're doing science and reason a disservice by arguing that they should automatically defer to religion. I ask you again: How is trying not to step on any religious person's toes going to change anything?
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Points: 3281 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 16:23
Well actually I might say that. This is perhaps simply due to a lack of understanding on my part of how a theist's mind works, in in fact it does ;)
 
I just can't reconcile how you can live a life and do things when you believe that a magical sky god orchestrates everything.
 
"The bridge will fall down or it won't, it's nothing to do with me. It's all in god's hands. If I do a good job or not building it, that's in god's hands. If it falls down and kills everybody, that was part of god's plan and they're all in heaven now so that's not really so bad is it" etc
 
Seriously, if you're a devout Christian, people dying isn't a bad thing. If they go to hell, well they deserved to, right? And if they go to heaven, that's glorious! Christians should be impassive in the face of death, even large scale death. Yet oddly enough they are not.
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 16:25
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Mr ProgFreak Mr ProgFreak wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Mr ProgFreak Mr ProgFreak wrote:


He's certainly not trying to "get" the political correct guys.
And neither is Pat Condell. Which is their mistake and why the rest of us will continue to ignore them or be amused by them depending on whether we can endure their diatribes to the bitter end or not.


Do you think that there is any way at all to "get" the politically correct guys? I honestly doubt it.
Stop calling them "the polically correct guys" and you're halfway there. No one ever listens to people who call them names.


So you think that "politically correct" qualifies as "names"? I guess there's hope for you after all.Wink
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Points: 6795 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 16:26
Originally posted by Slartibartfast Slartibartfast wrote:

Theism vs. Atheism ... is it settled?
Yes, next topic please. Tongue
Posted over a month ago.
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Points: 679 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 16:27
Originally posted by Textbook Textbook wrote:

No, a theist cannot be a scientist. Anyone who says they are is pretending on one front. Either they don't fully believe in science or they're not fully committed to their faith. Either you believe the world is governed by physical properties and we can attain mastery over our lives by fully understanding those, OR you believe it operates at the whim of a magical mastermind who can alter the "rules" or steer things down any path it pleases at any time without regard for scientific law. I don't see how you can say "both".
Ever heard of Francis Collins who was head of the Human Genome Project? He's a commited Christian.
And Owen Gingerich, before his retirement he was Research Professor of Astronomy and of the History of Science at Harvard. They both wrote excellent books where they relate how they see no conflict with science and religious belief.
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Points: 1588 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 16:28
Originally posted by Textbook Textbook wrote:

Well actually I might say that. This is perhaps simply due to a lack of understanding on my part of how a theist's mind works, in in fact it does ;)
 
I just can't reconcile how you can live a life and do things when you believe that a magical sky god orchestrates everything.
 
"The bridge will fall down or it won't, it's nothing to do with me. It's all in god's hands. If I do a good job or not building it, that's in god's hands. If it falls down and kills everybody, that was part of god's plan and they're all in heaven now so that's not really so bad is it" etc
 
Seriously, if you're a devout Christian, people dying isn't a bad thing. If they go to hell, well they deserved to, right? And if they go to heaven, that's glorious! Christians should be impassive in the face of death, even large scale death. Yet oddly enough they are not.


Every human being, including theists, still has something called instinct. Most of our behaviour isn't rational. In fact, without emotions we wouldn't even be able to make a single decision. 

Edited by Zebedee - August 09 2010 at 16:36

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Points: 679 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 16:30
Originally posted by Textbook Textbook wrote:

Well actually I might say that. This is perhaps simply due to a lack of understanding on my part of how a theist's mind works, in in fact it does ;)
 
I just can't reconcile how you can live a life and do things when you believe that a magical sky god orchestrates everything.
 
"The bridge will fall down or it won't, it's nothing to do with me. It's all in god's hands. If I do a good job or not building it, that's in god's hands. If it falls down and kills everybody, that was part of god's plan and they're all in heaven now so that's not really so bad is it" etc
 
Seriously, if you're a devout Christian, people dying isn't a bad thing. If they go to hell, well they deserved to, right? And if they go to heaven, that's glorious! Christians should be impassive in the face of death, even large scale death. Yet oddly enough they are not.
Jesus in the Gospels cried when his friend lazarus died and was in torment in the garden of gethsemane over his inpending death. If the Son of God found death a horror than his followers should be no different.
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Points: 3281 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 16:40

But why? Why is he sad about following the word of god and people going to paradise? How is either of those things "a horror"?


I say that whole passage is in there to reassure people who weren't too confident about this "dying for god" thing. "It's OK, Jesus didn't feel that great either!" One wonders why though, knowing what he supposedly did.
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Points: 8052 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 16:43
Originally posted by Mr ProgFreak Mr ProgFreak wrote:

Originally posted by TGM: Orb TGM: Orb wrote:


I've seen it and I'll answer that with just two points.

The idea that religion has done more harm than good and is therefore a bad thing is fatuous. I can assert with the same validity the same thing about alcohol, cigarettes, strong political beliefs, industrialisation, cake, overpopulation, globalism, the British empire, Cornish nationalism, Israel, oil, music... given the entirely non-specific way it is asserted, it's a meaningless statement.



He mentions this to show that discussions about religions and atheism matter - not to "disprove religion".

Originally posted by TGM: Orb TGM: Orb wrote:



The notion that believing in a god and an afterlife makes you care less about the world we live in is simply wrong (if I didn't believe in a god, I'd very likely end up being some variety of existentialist or nihilist and I think either of those perspectives would leave me more apathetic to the rest of the world than I currently am).


Sorry, but believing that after this life ends you get a whole new life is obviously more likely to make you appreciate this life less. On the other hand, believing that this life is all you have is obviously more likely to make you appreciate it more. Common sense, IMO.


1. I know that. That doesn't make it any less incorrect, does it?

2. This is both a misdirection (I was referring to a point about caring about the world, not about appreciating your life) and untrue. If your belief in an objective reality is contingent on a belief in god (which comes with some suppositions about the afterlife), then your belief in god actually increases your appreciation of your life because it is tied to your belief in the objective impact of your actions.
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Points: 8052 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 16:53
Originally posted by Textbook Textbook wrote:

Well actually I might say that. This is perhaps simply due to a lack of understanding on my part of how a theist's mind works, in in fact it does ;)
 
I just can't reconcile how you can live a life and do things when you believe that a magical sky god orchestrates everything.
 
"The bridge will fall down or it won't, it's nothing to do with me. It's all in god's hands. If I do a good job or not building it, that's in god's hands. If it falls down and kills everybody, that was part of god's plan and they're all in heaven now so that's not really so bad is it" etc
 
Seriously, if you're a devout Christian, people dying isn't a bad thing. If they go to hell, well they deserved to, right? And if they go to heaven, that's glorious! Christians should be impassive in the face of death, even large scale death. Yet oddly enough they are not.


Um, being a theist doesn't neccessitate a belief in predestination.

Hell/heaven and deserving. Christianity is unique as far as I know in the concept of salvation by faith rather than by deeds... not everyone's impassive in the face of death because Christians are still human (and anyway, people have emotions more complex than the analysis of whether something's 'good' or 'bad').
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Points: 679 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 17:04
Originally posted by Textbook Textbook wrote:

But why? Why is he sad about following the word of god and people going to paradise? How is either of those things "a horror"?


I say that whole passage is in there to reassure people who weren't too confident about this "dying for god" thing. "It's OK, Jesus didn't feel that great either!" One wonders why though, knowing what he supposedly did.
To be fully united with humanity Jesus had to go through the deep darkness we all face when it comes to our death. That is probaly our deepest fear and Jesus could not have truly known what it is to be human without this experience. In fact on the cross he cries out that God has forsaken him. That the one man closest to God would cry out that he had been abandoned by God at the hour of his death is a mystery that I don't have the knowledge to answer. From children dying of cancer to the sudden deaths of our loved ones. We all are speechless and dumbfounded when it comes to death even the Son of God. Death seems to be the devils grip on humanity and it is God who brings us out of it's darkness and into the sunlight of Easter Sunday. Though while we are here in the shadowlands its hard to see the sunlight.
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Points: 17493 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 17:06
Textbook, drop your books and go meet people and talk with real people and then come back and try postulatig your ridiculous truths like "a theist can't be a scientific" again. You're mind has been narrowed by trying to be the opposite...
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 17:16
Originally posted by Mr ProgFreak Mr ProgFreak wrote:

When arguing against a metaphysical concept it is sometimes necessary to argue on the basis of "even if it was true". I know what you're getting at, I simply don't agree with your conclusion. I agree that scientific arguments won't be able to reach fundamentalist Theists. IMO you're doing science and reason a disservice by arguing that they should automatically defer to religion. I ask you again: How is trying not to step on any religious person's toes going to change anything?
Two points:
 
1. I'm not arguing, or saying, or implying, that science should defer to religion. Quite the contrary - I'm saying (because this has been my position since day one) ignore religion from any scientific study because it is simply not applicable and not relevant. (and ultimately futile).
 
2. I see you are inferring that I am one of those PC guys who are afraid to step on a religious person's toes. (so soon after I said I was not an apologetic too). Not true. If they put their toes under my size 11s I'll step on them, but I'll not stamp around at random hoping to bust a digit or two in the process. The point I make in not even attempting to offend believers is that such an act is achieves nothing. So I can use smart logic to refute minutiae in the bible, but does that affect any of the fundamental foundation that their faith is built upon? No, of course it doesn't.
 
 
 
I am called a Westerner and I live in the West. This puzzles me because I know I live on a globe and that if I open my front door and travel east for 17,296km I'll walk into my house through the back door and I also I know that If I leave by the back door and travel west for 17,296km I will return through the front door. Logic says I simultaneously live in the west and in the east. So I pull out my Nokia phone and its GPS tells me I am standing 1º 03' 21.19" W and I know that means west of the Greenwich Meridian - so therefore it is scientific proof that I am living in the West, if only by 1 degree of longitude. Now I know that is a happy coincidence for me that doesn't quite work for all those people living east of the Greenwich Meridian who think of themselves as living in the West because I know that the "The West" has lots of ambiguous non-scientific meanings regarding socio-political and socioeconomic systems and can even include people living in Australia, which geogrpahically is either as eastern as the Orient or neither east nor west, but down under. So even though I can use science and logic to prove something, it doesn't necessarily prove anything if what I apply my scientific logic to is not based in science in the first place.


Edited by Dean - August 09 2010 at 17:52
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 17:31
Originally posted by Mr ProgFreak Mr ProgFreak wrote:


So you think that "politically correct" qualifies as "names"? I guess there's hope for you after all.Wink
Well, I've yet to meet anyone who calls themselves a "Politcally Correct" guy, and in a world of "Political Correctness gone mad" the term is now in the sole usage of those people who use it in a disparaging way.
 
And anyway, not offending an armed fundamentalist religious nutjob is not really Political Correctness Gone Mad - it's more like not using a hair-dryer in the shower, which as anyone will tell you, is actually Health And Safety Gone Mad.
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Points: 7028 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 17:36
Originally posted by Adams Bolero Adams Bolero wrote:

Originally posted by Textbook Textbook wrote:

But why? Why is he sad about following the word of god and people going to paradise? How is either of those things "a horror"?


I say that whole passage is in there to reassure people who weren't too confident about this "dying for god" thing. "It's OK, Jesus didn't feel that great either!" One wonders why though, knowing what he supposedly did.
To be fully united with humanity Jesus had to go through the deep darkness we all face when it comes to our death. That is probaly our deepest fear and Jesus could not have truly known what it is to be human without this experience. In fact on the cross he cries out that God has forsaken him. That the one man closest to God would cry out that he had been abandoned by God at the hour of his death is a mystery that I don't have the knowledge to answer. From children dying of cancer to the sudden deaths of our loved ones. We all are speechless and dumbfounded when it comes to death even the Son of God. Death seems to be the devils grip on humanity and it is God who brings us out of it's darkness and into the sunlight of Easter Sunday. Though while we are here in the shadowlands its hard to see the sunlight.
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 17:48
Originally posted by Textbook Textbook wrote:

 
"The bridge will fall down or it won't, it's nothing to do with me. It's all in god's hands. If I do a good job or not building it, that's in god's hands. If it falls down and kills everybody, that was part of god's plan and they're all in heaven now so that's not really so bad is it" etc
 
I'm certain that christian bridge builders use the same load bearing and stress calculations that non-christian ones do and will apply Newtons three laws when making those calculations of the structures they plan on building. And if they make an error that causes the bridge to fail then they will meet the same punishment as a non-christian bridge builder who made the same error in calculation regardless of whether they attempt to blame their imaginary friend or not.
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Points: 3281 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 18:02

Dean: You're right but he may still blame his imaginary friend. Were it not for the imaginary friend who's going to come along and make everything right at some point in some way, perhaps people would be more diligent/conscientious in the first place.
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Points: 4006 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 18:02
Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Mr ProgFreak Mr ProgFreak wrote:


He's certainly not trying to "get" the political correct guys.
And neither is Pat Condell. Which is their mistake and why the rest of us will continue to ignore them or be amused by them depending on whether we can endure their diatribes to the bitter end or not.

Treating people like idiots never convinced anyone of anything... 
 
 
I actually think he makes some valid points in the ''Pat Condell hates tacos'' vid... am I the only person that watched it here?
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Points: 4006 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 18:09
Originally posted by Textbook Textbook wrote:

Dean: You're right but he may still blame his imaginary friend. Were it not for the imaginary friend who's going to come along and make everything right at some point in some way, perhaps people would be more diligent/conscientious in the first place.

 
 
Are you saying that religious people aren't diligent or conscientious?
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Points: 3281 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 09 2010 at 18:10

Someone was saying to me this is all about how you view people. If you view people as fundamentally flawed or untrustworthy, you are predisposed to atheism because you may view all churches/priests as misguided at best, outright conmen at worst. If however you believe people are basically good and well-meaning and right, then dismissing religion is a lot harder to do because so many millions for so long believed in it for so long and who are you to pronounce them all wrong?
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