WTF is this forum coming to? Awesome discussions on life, the universe & everything!

Just went ahead and fixed that. I like my irrationality, it reminds me that I am human.

 

Urotsukidōji springs to mind

Thank you - I've thoroughly enjoyed it too (not the butt-kissing...the debate ).

 

Christians are humans to don't forget ( well, most of them anyway ), but my point was flat earthers et al question something which has been proven to be true without even 1% of doubt or leeway for question/interpretation. Christians on the other hand don't quite get it when people question their beliefs which are not based on unquestionable evidence or undeniable proof...

You can carry on being an irrational human without having your beliefs called into question though, so long as we aren't talking religion or faith in that sense.

It has been a brilliant thread though, even if there were no real conclusions drawn due to going around in circles on matters of how the human psyche works..

 

You're splitting hairs. If I understand your point here, would my argument have been more valid if I had posted the video instead of the quote? Or is your objection based on the fact that my reference was from an animated source (noting of course that your first video was animated as well)?

Honestly, I'm not seeing the difference at all. It seems like you were trying to argue against the source rather than the actual message contained within. I know I've seen that somewhere before.

 

Feel free to gloat, Nexxo already made the same point and I had to concede.

The message of christianity regards 'love thy neighbour' & such is all well & good as I've also agreed ( who wouldn't? ), but the zombie jesus worshipping and psychological manipulation side of things is what I don't agree with. Teach a story as a story to help children grow up as good people for sure, but don't brainwash & scare/threaten them into it at the same time ( the notion or assertion of there being a god & that he is the core pf the story is not required ).

 

Lenny, (and any other xtians lurking) go about your day with this on in the background. I'm interested in your opinion on it...

 

Thehippoz frequently argues that we atheists are blind to the obvious proof for the existence of God that he sees everywhere. Same thing.

You keep arguing that science is different from religion. You and I know that science is not based on the same predicates as faith, but you and I are not most people. For most people science is just another belief system. They are happy to believe what science says, because the TV works and medicine works, so it must be true. But when they are in hospital with cancer, and the medicine doesn't work any more, I can assure you that many of these people feel just as comfortable (or desperate) breaking out the religious belief system and praying to God. Pascal's Wager suddenly sounds like a good bet when you're faced with actual dying. And if by some miracle(!) they then suddenly improve, guess who gets the credit, the doctors, or God?

The point is (also for you, Lenny): people believe whatever works for them. Many ordinary people accept science as a given because science produces tangible benefits in their lives. They don't understand how it works, but as long as it does it's good enough for them. And when it doesn't work for them (e.g. science says they should stop smoking or drinking so much, or eat less red meat or live a more restrained, less polluting lifestyle) they are just as happy to dismiss it ("Ah, scientists, what do they know?").

Many ordinary people accept their religion as a given because their religion offers them an existential framework in their lives. They don't understand how it works, but as long as it does it's good enough for them. And when it doesn't work for them (e.g. their religion says you should be tolerant and forgiving, kind towards your neighbour, share your wealth with the poor and live a life of restraint and no sex before marriage) then they are just as happy to dismiss it ("Yeah, but it's OK to kill heathens/oppress women/have sex with prostitutes, 'cause they don't count").

People are remarkably good at compartmentalising, and holding conflicting frameworks side-by-side in their heads. They can be tender and loving towards wife and children before going to work as a concentration camp guard, gassing some women holding their babies in their hands. They can donate to donkey sanctuaries while scowling at starving illegal immigrants dying of hypothermia under a bridge in London. They can take the chemotherapy and pray to God, all at the same time. Whatever works, right?

 

Most Christians are neither philosophers nor apologists; they have a tangible experience of an internal change but cannot evidence it other than by claiming it. Once again, you can't dismiss it on the grounds that there is no "unquestionable" evidence.

Another thing I mentioned earlier in the thread is that the playing feild is not level - theists are defending a faith-based belief, whereas atheists are defending a disbelief... the latter is much easier (and is often recruited as a cop-out too). When atheists are challenged about their actual beliefs, it's remarkable how similar they are to theists regarding the things they believe that cannot be verified scientifically. As I have demonstrated already in this thread, people subscribe to morality without realising that it is often borrowed from other worldviews, or that what they call "morality" actually doesn't have anything to do with right and wrong...they are just words to serve a purpose and meet a need.

Do you have a belief about the origin of the universe, or the origin of the human species, which is based on "unquestionable evidence and undeniable proof?"

I really don't think much of it at all - people misrepresent and mock the Christian faith (and other religions) often, and many people who have bad experiences of being raised in religious families have negative prejudices which influence and undergird their beliefs. She comes across as highly intelligent and articulate, but her depicition of the Christian faith is ultimately just a mockery; she wouldn't last one minute against an astute Christian philosopher.

Absolutely, but we must remember that whilst most beliefs are (technically) opinions, not all opinions are equally valid. The scope of any debate which centres on belief is enormous, because questioning what a person believes is not just about God or morality, it's about that person's worldview.

 

I'm an atheist, am I supposed to?

 

There is nothing "technically" about it, its unproven its opinion.

 

Do you or don't you?

 

Logical error: if it is based on evidence or proof (which can never strictly be unquestionable; that's the whole thing about science), then it is not a belief. If it is a belief, it is not based on evidence or proof.

Of course atheists may just be content to know that they don't know.

 

No, I don't.

 

My argument throughout is that the validity of an opinion is determined by its functionality.

 

See below.

That's not a logical error - it's possible to believe something that is not wholly and completely substantiated by evidence, but that there is eveidence for nevertheless. Evidence is vastly misunderstood always to be black-and-white when in reality evidence can point in a number of directions and therefore lead to many possible conclusions. If I see tyre tracks in my driveway, I can believe my house was visited by somebody I know. The belief is based on the evidence that somebody was definitely here, but it is still a belief because I do not know who the person was and the evidence can't tell me who the person was.

In my experience that's generally not the case - most atheists seem to "know" one thing intuitively: that theists are wrong. Like I said, it's not really possible to have meaningful philosophical dialogue with somebody who doesn't hold a belief about the subject you're discussing; furthermore it's intriguing that such people feel qualified to question (and even mock) your beliefs whilst holding none themselves.

 

I'm not doubting people have undergone some form of 'change' after an experience which leads to a massive change on their outlook in life; attributing it to / calling it 'god' is woefully naive.

It's easier because occurrences attributed to divine intervention often have a perfectly rational explanation. They don't always though, true, but to claim 'god did it' in the lack of evidence to the contrary is also woefully naive.

Nope, but I'm not naive enough... you know the rest. There are many theories floating around which have been put forward, but since we don't have the ability to travel forward or back in time it is impossible to verify them- so they remain unproven theories; just like God.

 

er no you can believe that all you want, all the evidence is telling you is that a tire left a mark on your drive, inductive reasoning might allow that if there are several marks spaced apart that there was a car or van attached to the tires, with a large database and a measuring tape you might be able to narrow it down to type of van or car. But it can't tell you who was in the car or that you would know them, that would require extra evidence, i.e. the someone still sitting in the car on your driveway, tape recording of car and person, dna etc.

so you have to hold beliefs to question others? how is that intriguing rather than dismissive? and you can quite happily have a philosophical dialogue with someone who doesn't hold a belief in common, what you probably won't have is an agreement.

 

If God is merely an "unproven theory," what makes believing in him any more woefully naive than believing any other unproven theories?

 

That is not evidence; that is interpretation of facts as evidence (which is a valid process, but science teaches us that we have to be careful with that).

It is possible to not subscribe to a belief (opinion) without having a different one yourself.

People move between two points on a continuum: taking things at face value, and having really thought about things. Atheists and theists can be found along the continuum between both. Some people are atheists because they just can't picture a "beardy old guy in the sky". Other atheists really think about it scientifically and conclude that there is no evidence for the existence of God (or at least that He is not necessary to explain the universe). Some theists really can't imagine evolution; there must be a creator. Some theists really think about it spiritually and conclude that there must be a consciousness that we refer to as God.

We're the really-thinking-about-it camp, so we are having a debate about it. People who mock us with monkey-buttsex or zombie-Jew jokes are the guys who edge more towards the taking-things-at-face-value camp.

 

A complete lack of evidence. God is not an unproven theory, god is an un-disprovable hypothesis.