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| Why is religion the quintessential forum topic? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: May 21 2008, 03:27 PM (2,763 Views) | |
| Moonbat | May 25 2008, 02:50 PM Post #176 |
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How do you know the universe came from somewhere? As for me - I haven't concluded anything - perhaps the universe as we think of it today always has been, perhaps the big bang was an ultimate beginning, perhaps some larger process resulted in the what we think of the universe (e.g. in the string theory picture what we think of the universe comes along when two branes collide in an even larger reality). All i'm saying is that you can't say "look the universe exists therefore there was an intelligent creator mind" anymore than you can say "look the universe exists therefore there was a non-intelligent mystic pillar". Your argument doesn't work - the "problem" of existence i.e. that at some point you have to just say "it just is" despite the fact that's quite an unintuitive thing to say remains the same. You simply proclaim the problem applies to the universe and then proclaim it doesn't apply to your magic creator mind. So your "argument" simply reduces to you just baselessly asserting God exists and made the world. You can't argue that God exists and made the world based on your assertion that God exists and made the world! That isn't an argument at all.
I'm quite happy to answer your question about love after you accept that your argument that the universe exists therefore there is an intelligent creator has been refuted.
Belief has nothing to do with choice, only people who are fundamentally confused about how to think say thinks like "if you don't want to believe in X that is your choice". As for my mind not being open - that's nonsense i'm open to evidence i can tell you the kinds of the things that could change my mind. You on the other hand are genuinely closed to the possibility that you could be wrong since there is nothing even in principle which could change your mind.
Ok.... *backs away slowly*
Larry you constantly tell other people they are stupid, you spent ages telling Daniel he was stupid, before that you told masetro he was stupid. You do it with practically everyone who argues politics with you and you do it in a viscious way, you try as much as possible to hurt the people you argue with. And it is for that reason i have no problem insulting your intelligence. That and the fact that your mind is actually quite broken. I mean i have serious doubts whether you would pass the Turing test. You just make arbitrary proclamations and then pretend that you've made arguments, it's like you don't understand what an argument is, like you don't actually understand what thinking something though actually means. Many times when i read you, what you appear to be doing is copying what other people have done in vaguely similar circumstances. So you will tell people they are in denial or are deluded because you've seen other people say that kind of thing. You will tell people they don't use "reason" or that they are being "dishonest" because you've seen other people say that. You will accuse people of constructing "straw man" because you've seen other people use that phrase. You do not appear to grasp that when people say things what they say has to mean something has to be coherent has to represent ideas and thoughts. You can't just insert words that you've heard people use in vaguely similar contexts - that's not communication, that's not thought, that's just being a crazy person.
Well i know lots of things other than than the things i've learned in books, but books contain the cumulative knowledge of humanity. Your inferiority complex about having not read anything could be rectified by simply going out and reading some books. There are many many things that you can't really learn about without reading books. Really, it's no different to spending time listening to people who are relating various discoveries and thoughts.
I'm sorry for this man, i can't imagine what it must be like to lose a 5 year old child but it doesn't seem very suprising that someone's faith might increase in such a tragic situation. It is mortality and our fear of it for ourselves and our loved ones that is one of religions strongest draws. |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| Larry | May 25 2008, 02:55 PM Post #177 |
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Moonie, in a science test you might score higher than me. In just about anything else, to me you are a complete moron. |
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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| Moonbat | May 25 2008, 03:00 PM Post #178 |
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| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| sarah_blueparrot | May 25 2008, 10:57 PM Post #179 |
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YEAH!! Now I can't WAIT to meet you, Moonbat!
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Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon. It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow. - Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross | |
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| Moonbat | May 26 2008, 02:04 AM Post #180 |
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| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| Larry | May 26 2008, 05:52 AM Post #181 |
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Let's see if Moonie tries to claim he's smarter than Einstein...... Einstein quotes: 'The religious inclination lies in the dim consciousness that dwells in humans that all nature, including the Humans in it is in no way an accidental game, but a work of lawfulness that there is a fundamental cause of all existence. " "The harmony of natural law reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection." "Science without Religion is lame. Religion without Science is blind." "Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernable laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force that is beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious." "I am not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they were written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, seems to me is the altitude of even the most intelligent human towards God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand those laws." "The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly; this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man." "The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after a hard struggle. They are creatures who----in their grudge against traditional religion as the 'opium of the masses'--they cannot hear the music of the spheres." "Science can be created only by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding. This source of feeling however springs from the sphere of religion." And one from Fred Hoyle: "Evolution works best when it is guided. If a blind man tried to solve a Rubik's cube, and he made one move a second, the Universe would be over before he got it solved. But if a sighted man who knew how to solve it, stood behind him and told him what moves to make, it could be solved in a few minutes. Unguided evolution would take too long to create a Life form as sophisticated as a Blue Whale or a Human. The Universe would be over first, but if evolution is guided it can be done." From the ideas of Fred Hoyle. But of course, we must remember..... Einstein was really not a scientist, and he didn't graduate from Oxford..... did he?...... |
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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| Moonbat | May 26 2008, 06:07 AM Post #182 |
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Einstein did not believe in your concept of God indeed you seem to have forgotten that only a few days ago you accused Einstein of not knowing what he was talking about when he said:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein What you have to try and understand is that when Einstein talks about "religion" or "God" or even "intelligence" in those other quotes he does not mean what you mean, he doesn't not mean tradditional ideas of a personal God who designed the universe performs miracles and punishes or rewards in an afterlife. He uses these words in a metaphorical sense, what he thinks is entirely non-anthropomorphic, there is no projection of human characteristics like sentience or awareness onto nature. He means what is commonly known today as "scientific pantheism" (or atleast something very close to it), a kind of appreciation and wonder at the mystery of the world, of it's structure and it's nature. He means something a bit like a Spinoza esque view. I am religious in the same sense Einstein is. I think there is a fundamental mystery and strangeness to the world. I think there is a structure and order to the world, i don't think events are random i think they ordered according to deep principles that we try and grasp at in the scientific enterprise. There can be a tendency for atheists in arguing against religious nonsense to dismiss the wonder of the world the sheer amazingness of it, somehow losing sight of that in the process of dismissing these terrible arguments people make. But that is an awful mistake! The world is beyond amazing the world is spectacularly impossibly unthinkingly strange. If you want to call me religious then the world is my religion but I don't think that language is necessarily useful because it confuses people, you misread Einstein and thinks he's talking about your ideas of a personal creator when he is not. Not at all, not in any sense. In terms of Hoyle - well he was a believer in your sense of the word - his statement about evolution is simply nonsense. I mean there a zillion different refutations of that statement. He was a perfectly decent scientist, he's not any less of a scientist because he lost the plot slightly with respect religion and evolution. His contribution to astronomy remains of the same worth they were before, they aren' somehow lesser for his belief in God. In anycase i never claimed that no scientists buy into to these myths only that when you go up to upper echelons that most of them don't. - e.g. the 92% of the American Academy of sciences who do not subscribe to a classical personal concepts of God adhered to by the major religions, and almost all the uber-scientists of the recent past Einstein included who felt similarly. The reason for that is because knowing more about the world how it works and how people work -posessing a greater insight into nature means it's easier to see through the psychologically appealing but ultimately flawed myths that make up the classical religions. |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| Larry | May 26 2008, 08:27 AM Post #183 |
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I didn't say Einstein believed in God the way I do, Moonbat. I showed you that in spite of his lack of belief in God, he was intelligent enough to understand that *something* was responsible for the order he saw around him, and that a wise man has no choice but to acknowledge it - something you are incapable of doing.
And that's why you will remain ignorant, Moonie. You see myths.. those capable of a deeper understanding than the simple level that you insist on dwelling on see more than that. |
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| John D'Oh | May 26 2008, 09:50 AM Post #184 |
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Einstein wasn't smart enough to see the truth of quantum mechanics. We all have our blind-spots. Except me, of course. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| Moonbat | May 26 2008, 10:15 AM Post #185 |
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Well reality is "responsible" for the order. He no more bought into a mystical orderer than I do. It's perfectly fine to say look isn't it interesting the universe has structure, isn't that mysterious! But you cannot say therefore it was designed/there was some kind of mind involved in it. That doesn't work.
Don't you feel just wittle bit silly quoting Einstein to defend your mythology when he specifically called it silly and childish? Ooops! |
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| Larry | May 26 2008, 11:07 AM Post #186 |
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Read Kant, Moonie. |
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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| Moonbat | May 26 2008, 11:51 AM Post #187 |
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Kantian ideas of a transcendental reality, of implicitly unknowable noumena underlying the phenomena we experience do not constitute any kind argument or reason that supports your mythology of personal Gods who have thoughts and feel emotions, designed the world, have intentions, listen to prayers, perform miracles, created man for a particular purpose, punish and reward men and women in an afterlife, etc. etc. |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| Rainman | May 26 2008, 12:35 PM Post #188 |
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Gawd, I just LOVE that kind of talk!! Don't know what it means. . . but it sounds so cool! |
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| Moonbat | May 26 2008, 12:59 PM Post #189 |
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Philosophy is annoyingly pretentious. Those are the words that Kant uses- he calls our experiences of things "phenomena" so when i say look at this ball, everything you and I experience of the ball is the "phenomena" and the "noumena" refers to the reality that is supposedly in some sense "beneath" the experiences we have that somehowgives rise to them but which is itself implicitly unknowable and undescribeable (beause we only have access to the phenomena). My reaction to the idea is mostly - meh. In any case there is no logic that goes unknowable aspects to reality therefore intelligent creator mind. |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| Rainman | May 26 2008, 01:11 PM Post #190 |
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Still, too highball for me I guess. Can't even understand your sentence: "In any case there is no logic that goes unknowable aspects to reality therefore intelligent creator mind." Just doesn't read like the english I know, it's more like a series of words. . . |
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| Moonbat | May 26 2008, 01:27 PM Post #191 |
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It's just my lack commas and general lack of punctuation. (it's always the commas fault,,,,, <- there i put some in). What i was trying to say was that the idea that there are unknowable aspects to reality does not lead to the conclusion that there is an intelligent creator mind. Just as there is no logic that can take you from "human beings have 5 fingers" to "gravity is weaker on Jupiter than Pluto". So too there is no logical path from the idea of this unknowable 'inner' reality to mainstream monotheistic ideas of a personal God who created man in his own image, etc. etc. |
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11:27 AM Jul 11