Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to The New Coffee Room. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Is religious fundamentalism a disease of the mind?
Topic Started: Apr 7 2007, 12:38 AM (5,023 Views)
Dewey
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
Jeffrey
Apr 7 2007, 02:05 PM
Dewey - Yes, I said his argument was a bit "rhetorical". However, he is correct that we are all atheists (i.e. disbelievers) about wood fairies and Zoroastrianism. He just goes one supernatural spirit-being further. Everybody is a disbeliever in something.

Atheism is not merely a synonym for disbelief. It is a specific type of disbelief; disbelief in a god, or gods, however one may choose to define them. To say that I don't believe in the Muslim explanation of God doesn't make me an atheist, since, in my disbelief of the Muslim concept, I retain a belief in another understanding of God. Atheism is a rejection of belief in any, and all, expressions of God.

This is why Dawkins' argument fails. In his inability, or refusal, to think of a God that is not defined or "owned" by Zoroatrianism, or Presbyterianism, but rather, believes a priori that any God is a mere human invention, he can't even properly understand the meaning of the concept of atheism.

It's entirely possible to both understand the concept of a God, the attributes of whom are entirely independent of the human understandings of any religious structure, and still not believe in such a God. Rather than Dawkins being the glory boy of atheism, I actually see him as being so intellectually stunted (as pertains this topic) that he's beaten before he gets out of the starting block. He spends 400 plus pages not really arguing a point nearly so much as justifying a foregone conclusion.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
TomK
HOLY CARP!!!
Moonbat
Apr 7 2007, 03:18 PM
Quote:
 

And everybody's believeing in something--even if that only "nothing."


Now that is sophistry.

Exactly.

I was just doing the same equation from the other direction.

The problem with all your analysis--worthy though it is, it doesn't account for as I might have mentioned before, things like hope and beauty. You really dismiss a lot of facts of life as nothing.

There IS beauty. It exists beyond statistical analysis. It's something beyond rationality and beyond the human capacity to understand. But for some reason we can recognize it. That may not point to a God to you, but surely you have to recognize that there is something beyond just the factoids of biology.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Jolly
Member Avatar
Geaux Tigers!
TomK
Apr 7 2007, 12:19 PM
DivaDeb
Apr 7 2007, 02:05 PM
the only fundie in this thread

Pretty interesting that for the most part the Fundamentalists don't get too involved in religion talk around here. From what we are led to believe about them they should be slinging hellfire and damnation all around this place.

Hmmm. Do you think that maybe the media and the secularists are a bit on their case? :cool:

Why bother?

We're talking about Faith. Either you have it, or you don't. If you have it, you may disagree with a fundamentalist's interpretation of Scripture, but you don't think he's a bug-eyed loon. If you don't have Faith, it would be easier to describe the color red to a blind man.

Let them that have ears hear.
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Dewey
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
Moonbat, you're just going around in circles, making the exact same arguments - argument, actually - just introducing us to a yet more creative menagerie of invisible characters.

Quote:
 
Your argument applies to all statements consistent in themselves, it can be used to defend pink unicorns on Mars or invisible elephants or any of an infinite number of mutually exclusive descriptions. Because it can be applied to any conclusion it is worthless at distinguishing those conclusions that are likely to be true from those likely to be false. You thus cannot use it to attack the idea that a certain conclusion is valid or invalid.


In fact I can, until all of these things are proven not to actually exist, despite any percentage probability for their existence. Until that time, the best that your invisible elephant argument can do is to permit you to say that something is extremely likely, in your opinion. Nothing more.

Before you accuse me of advocating for the existence of invisible elephants, here's my point. It's obvious that at this point in your life, you have not seen - I'd suggest, that you have not been able to comprehend - any evidence to support the idea of a God, much less a transcendent/personal God worshipped by Christians.

Big deal; you may go through your entire life without this scenario changing. You may not. Either way, I believe it isn't up to me, or even you. All that I can tell you is that if/when the situation ever changes, you'll look back on your current position in utter amazement, wondering how you could possibly have been so blind to what you'll then consider the iron-clad reality that was staring you in the face all along.

The point is that you have insufficient evidence to make the categorical statements of "fact" that you make, like

Quote:
 
I'm aware of this. It doesn't alter the point that they are utterly divorced from reality.


in the absence of proof - and you can't simply dismiss the need for such proof to be irrelevant. In fact, your entire position hinges on precisely the need for proof. I'm not trying to, nor is it my responsibility, to prove God's existence to you. You're the one arguing against God's existence. You have to prove your position to me, not the other way around.

Your mouth and brain are conspiring to write checks that your checking account of provable knowledge can't cash.

Quote:
 
Whether one describes the process that drives this disconnection as an illness is a matter of semantics.


But semantics, along with the taking a dig at Larry, is the entire purpose of this thread. Is religious fundamentalism a mental disorder, or not. I voted no.

Quote:
 
...i'm putting 'faith in reason' (an incoherent statement if ever there was one),...


Oh, I quite agree, but hey, it's your position, not mine.

Moonbat, you've gotten to a point where in this thread or others, you

1. claim that there is no correlation between how many people believe something and its truth, while in practically the same breath arguing against a theistic position by citing the number of scientists who are allegedly non-theists.

2. make categorical statements that could be justifiable only with proof - proof, not merely a reasonable amount of evidence, as interpreted by your own filter of factuality.

3. discount the importance of having such proof to justify making such sweeping claims as irrelevant.

4. make the "invisible elephant" argument, then back up and essentially say "wait, wait, here's a better argument - this time, let's talk about invisible monkeys!" South Park's mad cloning scientist Dr. Mephisto specializes in creating animals with four asses, all of them equal in relevance and value as the number of invisible animals you'd like to try to turn into arguments against the existence of God. I might say that my car is green, and since it actually is, I can make a pretty good argument for it. But the truthfulness of that statement is not negated by the fact that my neighbor could make the same argument, using the exact same words, and be completely wrong, since his car is actually white.

God's existence, or nonexistence, is not determined by whether I believe God exists, or whether you believe God doesn't. It's got nothing to do with the idea that similar arguments can be made for invisible monkeys, elephants, or even teapots. Feel free to weigh the evidence regarding God's existence however you may, or are able to. But in order to back up the categorical statements that belief in God is delusional, indicative of an intellectual disconnect or impairment - in order to state this as "fact", you need "proof", not "evidence." And proof is one thing that you are lacking in. It's crucial to your position, so, in its absence, you have to deem it irrelevant.

"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
DivaDeb
HOLY CARP!!!
Moonbat, the terminology "systems of logic" is common in academia, in the study of philosophy and epistemology, in particular, but also in maths and the sciences. As a grad student, you really have not had to take a test that required you to compare and contrast several systems, at some point?

I'm not trying to be a smart ass, btw...I'm genuinely puzzled that you seem not to have run across this in school. I am assuming that Dewey is using the phrase in the academic sense in which I understand it. (correct me if I'm wrong about that, Dewey)

If you're interested in learning more, there is a ton of literature readily available. You might check your library there for Norman Martin's "Systems of Logic". It's an older book, I had it as a textbook in a class, I'm sure there are better/newer texts available but I imagine Martin's book would be easy to find. If you haven't read Koslow's A Structuralist Theory of Logic, I think it's right up your street. It's pricey...but again, it might be in the library there.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Jeffrey
Senior Carp
Dewey - Dawkins's main argument is not new. It is that belief in a personal god is incompatible
with modern scientific knowledge, and that the hypothesis that a god created the observable world is merely to explain the obscure by the more obscure. Less than 1 percent of Nobel Laureates in the sciences belief in a god. No "miracle" has ever been scienfifically documented in a peer reviewed journal. Not one single one, ever. He also adds many smaller side points, like the one above.

Religion as a anthropological matter includes Zoroastrianism, wood fairies, and witchcraft. In societies that believe such things, belief in these systems of faith work exactly like Christianity works in our society, and people say the same exact things in their favor. And Christians are, nevertheless, atheist disbelievers in those systems of thought (using the word loosely).
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
TomK
HOLY CARP!!!
Jeffrey
Apr 7 2007, 04:58 PM
Religion as a anthropological matter includes Zoroastrianism, wood fairies, and witchcraft.  In societies that believe such things, belief in these systems of faith work exactly like Christianity works in our society, and people say the same exact things in their favor.  And Christians are, nevertheless, atheist disbelievers in those systems of thought (using the word loosely).

So what? It's a point of semantics, nothing more.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mikhailoh
Member Avatar
If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
To call Christians 'atheist' anything is absurd. To say they do not believe in wood fairies, etc. is no different than saying they do not have faith in Allah, Bhudda, or Shinto spirits. It does not make them atheists, simply disbelievers. There is no such thing as a 'relative atheist'.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Axtremus
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
bachophile
Apr 7 2007, 10:16 AM
Quote:
 
but i rather think you have the wrong axis, this gaussian is a gasusian of rationality. And the new atheists do sit on one side.


aha, this is the crux of our difference...we have different axes.

i dont consider rationality as an appropriate axis (way too 19th century for me) in this discussion.

and so, i also know i can not convince u that the dogmatism of dawkins is equally repulsive to me as the dogmatism of the various creationists.

for me the correct axis is simply of tolerance.

So... which one is "closer" to being a "disease of the mind"?

Extreme intolerance or extreme irrationality? :huh:
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ivorythumper
Member Avatar
I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Riley
Apr 7 2007, 07:51 AM
ivorythumper
Apr 7 2007, 05:37 AM
We have standards -- notably DSM-IV -- for understanding such things. We don't need (and SHOULD NOT) to resort to psychobabble or dubious viral or genetic analogies or fashionable academic social theory to understand these things. From meme theory, it is every bit as likely that your impetus to even ask the question is every bit as problematic as assuming that religious fundamentalism might be mimetic.

Funny how quick you are to defend Religious Fundamentalism and argue the use of the term 'disease', yet you seem to have no problem with thecomments another member makes daily.

What the heck are you talking about? I have never stated that I agree with the way "another member" uses the term.

All your comment shows is that you were not clever enough to call "another member" to justify his comments from objective mental health research data.

I am hereby publicly calling attention to the fact that the argument is a copyrighted idea, and all future use is subject to a licensing fee. If anyone wishes to use the argument in any form of challenging the use of "mental disease", "disease of the mind" or any other similar formation by recourse to DSM-IV or any other professional standard for the evaluation of mental health issues, please PM me and I will grant limited use license upon payment to my PAYPAL account. :wink:
The dogma lives loudly within me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Horace
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
TomK
Apr 7 2007, 09:36 AM
The interesting thing though, is that if Fundamentalists (and other believers in God,) are so misguided about so many real truths about reality--why are they successful in so many aspects of today's society?

If one went by pay stubs, the "religionists" on the board would be the equal of the "rational thinkers". Same goes for "happy families" and the such.

There doesn't seem to be any advantage in being "rational" about one's understanding of the world.

as a non-believer, I pretty much agree with this.

For me, non-theism is not a "choice", it's just how my brain operates. More and more I figure it's just that I'm missing a part, more or less.
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ivorythumper
Member Avatar
I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Jeffrey: "Carrying Water for Dawkins since 2007"® :wink:

"Dawkins, Dawkins, he's our man
If he can't do it no one can!
GOOOOOOOOOOO DAWKINS!"
The dogma lives loudly within me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
AlbertaCrude
Bull-Carp
TomK
Apr 7 2007, 10:19 AM
Pretty interesting that for the most part the Fundamentalists don't get too involved in religion talk around here.  From what we are led to believe about them they should be slinging hellfire and damnation all around this place.


That's a very good point- it shows how little is understood about the nature of fundamentalism.

Most people on the outside do not realize how fractional the Christian fundamentalist movement is. It is not at all like Catholicism or mainstream Protestant denominations. While there are some fundamentalists- e.g. Phelps, Robertson and to a limited extent, Falwell- who would reign down hellfire and damnation on all around, there are many others, probably the majority, who quietly go about their devotion and pretty much keep it within their family and church community. If there is a commonality to almost all fundamentalist movements, it is a focus on the logos of faith rather than the mythos of faith and piety. This is manifest in an insistence that scripture is the inerrant word of God and therefore it is to be read and understood literally. Anything that cannot be traced back to scripture is man made and therefore false dogma- hence the uneasy relationship between many fundies and the Pope. It is therefore no surprise that a rationalist approach to Scripture gives rise to such mass and grassroots movements as Creationism and Intelligent Design to counter secular science.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Moonbat
Member Avatar
Pisa-Carp
TomK
Apr 7 2007, 07:46 PM
Moonbat
Apr 7 2007, 03:18 PM
Quote:
 

And everybody's believeing in something--even if that only "nothing."


Now that is sophistry.

Exactly.

I was just doing the same equation from the other direction.

The problem with all your analysis--worthy though it is, it doesn't account for as I might have mentioned before, things like hope and beauty. You really dismiss a lot of facts of life as nothing.

There IS beauty. It exists beyond statistical analysis. It's something beyond rationality and beyond the human capacity to understand. But for some reason we can recognize it. That may not point to a God to you, but surely you have to recognize that there is something beyond just the factoids of biology.

But i accept all our experiences Tom. I accept all the qualia of life.

I don't accept it is necessarily beyond our grasp, there is a lot of historical precedent of people who claim humanity will never know X only to be shown to be wrong further down the line. I mean perhaps we will never grasp how it is we come to experience beauty but certainty in such a position seems unfounded.

Further whilst we clearly don't understand how we come to experience beauty and love that doesn't imply that some kind of dualism is true.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Axtremus
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
Dewey
Apr 7 2007, 11:54 AM
Quote:
 
Well indeed the core delusion is the thing that means people continue to think the Earth is 6000 years old or that humans don't share a common ancestor with other apes in the 21st century. That is at the heart of the pathology.


I do not believe that the earth is 6,000 years old. Further, I'm not a fundamentalist. But on behalf of them, let me at least explain one thing about them to you.

The core belief - or "core delusion," to you - of fundamentalists is not what the age of the earth is. Fundamentalist Christians' core belief is in God, and that Jesus Christ is the human incarnation of this God who acts to reconcile a broken relationship between God and us. That is their core belief. A secondary extension of that belief is the nature, and the way to understand and interpret, the Biblical scriptures.

In other words, fundamentalist Christians believe that the earth is 6,000 years old because they believe in Christ, and the truth proclaimed in the Biblical scriptures. They don't believe in Christ because they believe the earth is 6,000 years old.

Still... given the overwhelming physical evidence to the contrary, if you still believe that the Earth is 6000 years old -- you're still wrong, you're still irrational. Doesn't matter if your basis to arrive at the "Earth is 6000 years old" believe comes from your believe in God+Jesus+Bible. Once you're shown physical evidence that Earth is more than 6000 years old, then, much like physicists who have been shown evidence of time dilation or length contraction have to admit that Newtonian mechanics is wrong or at best incomplete, you have to accept that whatever it is that you used to believe in God+Jesus+Bible is wrong or at best incomplete to be "rational." These "Christian fundamentalists" (as you described them) pretty much reject physical evidence showing Earth is a lot older than 6000 years -- this is, at is core, "irrational."

[If you want to argue probability that there's a non-zero chance that indeed the Earth is 6000 years old, then I'd argue that the probability of Earth is 6000 years old is not much better than the probability of there being an invisible unicorn on Mars. So those who believe in the Earth being 6000 years old is not all that much "rational" than those who believe in the invisible unicorn on Mars.]

Now whether you can still call folks who admit that traditional thinking on God+Jesus+Bible is wrong or at best incomplete "Christian Fundamentalists" is another matter of definition.

Whether "irrationality" qualifies as a "disease of the mind" is also a separate matter for debate. (Note Bach's posts on the different "axes.")

But the "rationality" of those who believe in Earth being 6000 years old, there's not much to debate there, I don't think.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
TomK
HOLY CARP!!!
Moonbat
Apr 7 2007, 05:32 PM
But i accept all our experiences Tom. I all the qualia of life.

I don't accept it is necessarily beyond our grasp, there is a lot of historical precedent of people who claim humanity will never know X only to be shown to be wrong further down the line. I mean perhaps we will never grasp how it is we come to experience beauty but certainty in such a position seems unfounded.

Further whilst we clearly don't understand how we come to experience beauty and love that doesn't imply that some kind of dualism is true.

And I, for one, accept all the scientific data there is. Dark matter, dark energy: all that quatifiable stuff--I go along with. It doesn't explain the meaning of any of it. It doesn't explain why it exists in the first place. It just tells us what is--and occasionally how it does what it does.

God explains the why.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Moonbat
Member Avatar
Pisa-Carp
Quote:
 

Moonbat, the terminology "systems of logic" is common in academia, in the study of philosophy and epistemology, in particular, but also in maths and the sciences. As a grad student, you really have not had to take a test that required you to compare and contrast several systems, at some point?

I'm not trying to be a smart ass, btw...I'm genuinely puzzled that you seem not to have run across this in school. I am assuming that Dewey is using the phrase in the academic sense in which I understand it. (correct me if I'm wrong about that, Dewey)

If you're interested in learning more, there is a ton of literature readily available. You might check your library there for Norman Martin's "Systems of Logic". It's an older book, I had it as a textbook in a class, I'm sure there are better/newer texts available but I imagine Martin's book would be easy to find. If you haven't read Koslow's A Structuralist Theory of Logic, I think it's right up your street. It's pricey...but again, it might be in the library there.


I am unfamiliar with the phrase but then my philosophy is based on the sciences not the humanities, the epistemology that interests me is the distinction between realism and idealism. And i think the humanities guys aren't going to get anywhere because to understand reasoning you're going to have to understand Baysian statistics, to understand deductive logic you're going to have to understand the theory of computation and through it and the results of scientific analysis understand the meaning of mathematics.

In this instance i doubt it will make any different to my argument for when i use the term reason or logic i refer to something inherent to working stuff out.

However i will look out for your text, thanks for the recommendation.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
John D'Oh
Member Avatar
MAMIL
The belief that the earth is 6000 years old isn't necessary to be a fundamentalist, is it? It is a bit of a silly belief, on a par with those of the flat earth society, but I don't think it qualifies as mental illness any more than my daughter's belief in Santa Claus. Willfull intellectual blindness would be a better description, and let's face it, most of us suffer from that in one area or another.

This fundamentalist atheist ( :rolleyes: ) voted no. I would like to take issue with an earlier statement that as an atheist I can't understand faith. How is it possible for anybody to know what I can and can't understand? I understand faith pretty well, I just don't see a reason to share it. Quantum mechanics I have more trouble with. There are no hard sums in The Bible, unless you are trying to decode it as a glorified Enigman machine, as some people seem intent on doing.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Moonbat
Member Avatar
Pisa-Carp
Quote:
 

And I, for one, accept all the scientific data there is. Dark matter, dark energy: all that quatifiable stuff--I go along with. It doesn't explain the meaning of any of it. It doesn't explain why it exists in the first place. It just tells us what is--and occasionally how it does what it does.

God explains the why.


That presupposes there is a cosmic meaning/purpose in the first place. The question what is the meaning is only valid _if_ there is a cosmic mind who preconcieved everything. The latter conclusions needs a basis. But it has none.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Jeffrey
Senior Carp
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/04/04/neuro...logy/index.html
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Moonbat
Member Avatar
Pisa-Carp
Quote:
 

Willfull intellectual blindness would be a better description, and let's face it, most of us suffer from that in one area or another


I suppose you're probably right and that mental illness is not a very good term - there are significant differences afterall between what we currently call mental illnesses and theological beliefs. But i don't think your description totally captures the matter either. I don't think it's willfull atleast not consciously so.

It's funny my colleagues often believe that deep down religious people know it's all made up, but i really don't think they do. I think they really believe it, i think they are sincere when they claim they want to know the truth, indeed they are sincere but something prevents them from seeing the idea on it's merits something disrupts their mind to the point where they somehow end up attacking reason itself rather than seeing things for what they are.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
dolmansaxlil
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
John D'Oh
Apr 7 2007, 05:49 PM


This fundamentalist atheist ( :rolleyes: ) voted no. I would like to take issue with an earlier statement that as an atheist I can't understand faith. How is it possible for anybody to know what I can and can't understand? I understand faith pretty well, I just don't see a reason to share it.

This fundamentalist atheist :P will fully admit that I don't understand faith. I just don't get it. I don't feel the need, I've never felt any pull towards any particular branch of any particular church. I don't feel like I'm missing anything. I just don't get it. In fact, I was about 20 before I truly understood that religious people TRULY believe what they're saying, and I was shocked when I realized it.

I have no problem saying I don't get it - I just don't seem to be wired that way. I truly don't understand where faith comes from. And I don't particularly care that I don't get it (one of the benefits of not understanding it in the first place, I suppose).

People can believe or not believe whatever they like. As long as they give me that same respect, I'm good.
"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

My Flickr Photostream


Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JBryan
Member Avatar
I am the grey one
Moonbat
Apr 7 2007, 10:01 AM
JBryan
Apr 7 2007, 02:45 PM
All evidence at hand would indicate that the earth is greater than 6,000 years old and it is certainly the way to bet. The evidence for man having a common ancestor is a bit more shaky but is, still, the way to bet. However, to state that it is utterly impossible, absolutely 0% chance that it could be otherwise as this statement clearly implies:

Quote:
 
If you believe that the Earth is 6000 years old you are wrong, fullstop. If you believe that human beings do not have a common ancestor with other apes you are wrong, fullstop.


strikes me as being far more fundamentalist than scientific or reasoned.

Nit-pick much?

It's not technically impossible, but the same can be said for the existence of Australia, (technically one cannot prove it) or the distance of the moon from the Earth.

Once a certain point is reached something becomes so probable that psychologically one considers it true. It is in the context of everyday speech that i say that the world is not 6000 years old fullstop.

Now ok one can be nuanced about it. Then we would say that the world is not 6000 years old is improbable to an immense degree, fullstop. People who say it is probable are simply wrong.

This is not a nit-pick. I goes back to Klaus' argument that you cannot find truth with science. Only more plausible explanations that fit the observable facts. I do not like dogma dressed up as science (e.g. the Intelligent Design so-called theory) nor do I like science dressed up as dogma. An inability to recognize the short-comings of science or reason in finding truth is a sort of fundamentalism. The Buddhists say reality is an illusion. You probably have something to say in reply that involves pink unicorns or something but you would only demonstrating just how far from the truth you really are. The earth could have sprang into existence yesterday complete with you and your memories of all that occured the day before and the sight of you unravelling mysteries with science and insisting on "full stop" truths would be just that much more comical.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
sue
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
John D'Oh
Apr 7 2007, 02:49 PM
There are no hard sums in The Bible, unless you are trying to decode it as a glorified Enigman machine, as some people seem intent on doing.

I thought this deserved a repeat. It's one of the big puzzles for me; I can't understand the obsession with some old written texts. The need for faith, for belief in a higher power; I can understand that, it's personal, I can see how that could be important, and I get that. But to make decisions based on ancient writings, I don't. And to endlessly debate about what those ancient writings really mean, I get even less.

I voted no, but then I also don't think liberalism is a disease of the mind.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mikhailoh
Member Avatar
If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
sue
Apr 7 2007, 06:33 PM
I voted no, but then I also don't think liberalism is a disease of the mind.

Dang. I thought we'd already settled that one. There are some holdouts I see. :lol2:
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Create your own social network with a free forum.
Learn More · Register Now
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · The New Coffee Room · Next Topic »
Add Reply