Author Topic: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....  (Read 32823 times)

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Offline jr2

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
Quote
This is Alice-in-Wonderland cucoo logic. Look, it doesn't work that way. Let me help you, please pay attention.

I take it you've never actually read Alice in Wonderland.

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Someone report him to CPS.  That's abuse.  :lol:

 

Offline Nuke

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
i refuse to call myself an atheist just on the shear number of militant atheists out there making atheism look bad. i will also not call myself agnostic because you get bible thumpers targeting you for conversion because you're perceived as open to the idea of the existence of a deity. for awhile i instead (likely erroneously, but who the **** cares) started to use the term nihilist. of course as that term got popular with angstridden teenage emo punks, i now lack a term in which to describe my views on the (non)existence of divine power. instead i give you a list of statements that i agree with:

1:   science should focus on questions in can potentially answer.
2:   there are questions in the universe that should remain unanswered.
2b: these are the questions that science cannot answer.
2c: people who attempt to answer those questions should be impaled.
3:   if god exists and is all powerful, he is evil.
3b: god and the devil are the same entity.
4:   if god is ruler of the universe, he is not a very good one.
4b: if god exists it is mankind's responsibility to depose him and take his place.
4c: god should then be impaled.
5:   if god does not exist, that saves us a lot of time
5b: thus we should assume a non-existence of god until counter evidence produces itself.

i guess you can call this nukism.*

*i try to start a new cult of personality religion every 3 weeks.

« Last Edit: November 10, 2011, 05:15:44 pm by Nuke »
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

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Offline watsisname

Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
I'm totally down with nukism
In my world of sleepers, everything will be erased.
I'll be your religion, your only endless ideal.
Slowly we crawl in the dark.
Swallowed by the seductive night.

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
Fail!

Eastern Orthodox.  :P

How wonderful of you to miss the point I was making so perfectly. :p

The point I was making that is that it is possible to make a definition for the word Catholic where the Popes are excluded. But to then assert that this is the only possible true definition is ludicrous.

See what you did there? Are you seriously going to claim anyone who belongs to the Roman Catholic church is NOT a catholic?

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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheist   -"one who believes that there is no deity"

Which brings me back to my point about the complete cluster**** of definitions for atheism compounded by the complete cluster**** of meanings for the word belief. That definition doesn't agree with the one on Wikipedia and Dictionary.com gives several competing definitions.


Certainly, a generic sense of atheism among the public is that it takes the position that god(s) do(es)n't exist.  This would be why I typically call myself agnostic versus atheist because I simply believe that there is not (and probably never will be) enough data to make that determination on the principles of rationalism and science.  There are a lot of people who call themselves atheists and take the same position, but that is not what the public at large typically thinks of atheism, which is why you see all these conflicting definitions of terms.

As I like to explain it to some religious friends and family members:  I don't believe in [your] Judeo-Christian God and "His" creation of the universe, but I cannot rule out that something a human would view as a deity is responsible for the laws of physics as we know them, and the subsequent creation of the universe as we understand it.

That is a position I've always associated with agnosticism, but I'm willing to bit there are a fair number of self-proclaimed atheists even on HLP that agree with it.

I tend to disagree with that because I've always viewed theism/atheism with "a" having the same meaning as in moral/amoral. The "a" does not denote the exact opposite but a lack of something. An amoral person has no morals, he has a lack of morality both good and bad. It is an immoral person goes out of his way to do things that are not moral.

In the same vein I'd view atheism as a lack of theism. A lack of belief in gods. It is an irreligious person who goes out of his way to disbelieve in God. And the truth is I suspect you'll find very few people who are actually irreligious. Most of the people who seem like it simply have a lack of belief when questioned on the fact.

Lumping yourself in with the agnostics leaves those who do have belief in gods but no actual belief in who they are with no word to describe themselves. So from a purely practical point of view I prefer the definition I'm using here because it gives the agnostics a word of their own and doesn't end up with the word Atheism belonging to a group of people who when questioned don't even hold that belief anyway. :p


for awhile i instead (likely erroneously, but who the **** cares) started to use the term nihilist.

Certainly any nihilist complaining is doing it all wrong. :p
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Offline Nuke

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
I'm totally down with nukism

int followers = 0;
while(followers < 100){
 if(newFollower())
  followers ++;
}
drinkCoolaid();
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Nuke's Scripting SVN

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
Nukism rule no2 sucks: there are no bad questions. Only bad methodologies of getting answers to those questions. And many times, we are still unable to answer a lot of them. However, no crazy person should be impaled by trying to do so. Who knows, he might be the next Einstein.

 

Offline Nuke

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
Nukism rule no2 sucks: there are no bad questions. Only bad methodologies of getting answers to those questions. And many times, we are still unable to answer a lot of them. However, no crazy person should be impaled by trying to do so. Who knows, he might be the next Einstein.


IMPALE HIM!

i like how these rules work

of course you missed 2b. if science can answer it, its not a bad question. you might get a grey area with things like string theory or or dark matter/energy. of course any good scientist will break down any problem into pieces that they can solve, and if they dont think they can answer a question they usually are smart enough to stay away from it. should probibly add an addendum that it is the responsibility of science to decide which questions should not be answered, but id rather see einstein impaled than that rule get abused.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2011, 05:38:37 pm by Nuke »
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Offline Polpolion

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
Quote
This is Alice-in-Wonderland cucoo logic. Look, it doesn't work that way. Let me help you, please pay attention.

I take it you've never actually read Alice in Wonderland.

Some months, every single day. To my kids.

Shame that doesn't guarantee you see what it's actually saying. :p But I digress.

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
I don't mind digressions. Problem is, you're just trolling my ass with your shenanigans, by making a vague accusation of my illiteracy or something.

Yeah you're very smart, I get it. Why don't you actually share your wits with us for a change?

 

Offline Mars

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
There are a whole host of words that describe someone's belief. Most atheists are Weak Atheists who don't so much believe that it's impossible for there to be deities, but that the chances of any described in any religion existing are highly remote. From this viewpoint it's possible that Thor exists, just pretty unlikely.

Strong Atheism out and out rejects the possibility of gods existing as so unlikely they are effectively zero.

 

Offline Polpolion

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
I don't mind digressions. Problem is, you're just trolling my ass with your shenanigans, by making a vague accusation of my illiteracy or something.

Yeah you're very smart, I get it. Why don't you actually share your wits with us for a change?

http://www.osnews.com/story/22972/It_Doesn_t_Add_up_Mathematics_in_Wonderland

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
should probibly add an addendum that it is the responsibility of science to decide which questions should not be answered, but id rather see einstein impaled than that rule get abused.

Yeah, let's ask science. Hey SCIENCE. Please could you give us an answer?

To what you ask?

Simple. Give us an answer about what we don't know yet but that we know we can't ever know? Oh, you say that's paradoxical?

IMPALE SCIENCE!

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
Ok Polpolion, nice text. Still haven't the faintest idea on what you are accusing me of. Basically you insult me and then make me work to understand exactly where your insult comes from. That's really nice. You're a swell guy indeed.

 

Offline Polpolion

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
Ok Polpolion, nice text. Still haven't the faintest idea on what you are accusing me of. Basically you insult me and then make me work to understand exactly where your insult comes from. That's really nice. You're a swell guy indeed.

None of what I said was meant to be an insult, in stark contrast to your sarcasm. Point being, in equating Alice in Wonderland to `cucoo' logic in the way that you've done, you've revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of the points the book makes, the core of which are highlighted in the text I posted. It's not all that relevant to the discussion at hand, though, so I made sure to note my digression. :p

ed: You should read the NYT article discussed in the second half of the text, too.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2011, 06:38:48 pm by Polpolion »

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
NO U. You didn't get Alice.

Now I'll let you work out why, and I'll even give you a hint. It's also very well described in the text you linked.

Let's see if you like your own poison (and no, I'm not trolling I am serious).

 

Offline Nuke

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
should probibly add an addendum that it is the responsibility of science to decide which questions should not be answered, but id rather see einstein impaled than that rule get abused.

Yeah, let's ask science. Hey SCIENCE. Please could you give us an answer?

To what you ask?

Simple. Give us an answer about what we don't know yet but that we know we can't ever know? Oh, you say that's paradoxical?

IMPALE SCIENCE!

yes but was it science that asked the question? perhaps i should punish both the asker and the one who answers.
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

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Offline Droid803

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
I go by this:

1. Impale all the things.
(´・ω・`)
=============================================================

 

Offline Mr. Vega

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
Science and religion do not deal with the same kinds of truth. To put forth religion as an enemy and opponent of science is to denigrate both. Because religion is founded upon the idea that there are other kinds of truth that lie outside the realm of scientific empiricism (science) or even pure rationalism (philosophy).

Yeaaaah, which is just bull****.

Hey, I have an idea. I'll create a bunch of "truths" that are the silliest thing. But I will say that its "truth" is different from the scientific one and the religious one. Then it miraculously makes sense and is validated. And dare not science geeks make fun of me! I'll demonstrate with my own truthiness why they are only being bigoted and small minded. I'll make products that will cure cancer with water! Measles with small percentages of itself! Any disease with supernatural weeds!


Oh wait, ****, someone already had this idea....

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And to anyone who looks for the presence of existential meaning in science, and finds nothing but what and how, not why, this is a perfectly reasonable idea. Just because something cannot be reduced to observations of a sensory nature does not mean it does not exist. So believing in both scientific theories and religious beliefs that apparently contradict those theories need not be any contradiction at all.

This is Alice-in-Wonderland cucoo logic. Look, it doesn't work that way. Let me help you, please pay attention.

Let's imagine a conversation. Here:

Me: Hey, howddoyado?
You: Fine and dandy.
Me: Hey, you know what? God exists.
You: Who's that?
Me: It's an all powerful being, omniscient, all loving, he created all this **** you see around us.
You: Man that's awesome. How do you know that?
Me: Magic.
You: Magic? What do you mean magic? Surely you have evidence going on for your hypothesis, I mean they are big assertions you are making here!!
Me: Nope. I don't need to. You see, my "kind" of knowledge is different from yours. To prove the existence of the simplest stuff like an atom, or a solid state of helium, etc., you need hard evidence, hard work, tons of people really banging up their heads in multiple dead ends until they slowly get to the correct answer.
You: Yeah, it's called the scientific method.
Me: Tough ****. I don't. I just make it up and sounds good, and I feel fine for believing it. And I made some self-consistent writings on it, so it must be true!
You: But that's not....
Me: That's not the scientific method! I agree! But this is not science, my friend, I call this "Religion", so your rules don't apply in my playground, you see?
You: Heeey isn't that cheating? Surely ...
Me: No it's not cheating, it's called Theology, and don't call me Shirley.

Quote
Regardless of whatever idiocy that is perpetrated in the name of religion, the idea that it can contain real truth is not something that cannot be simply dismissed. Why is as legitimate a question as how or what.

Questions are legitimate. Handwaved answers aren't. Specially if someone proclaims they have some special "relation" with the "ultimate" source of this truth.

Quote
So stop fighting, you two. Be content in your own domains.

I don't believe in NOMA, so your rules don't apply with me? (he, see? I just played your own game against you!)
Religion is not entirely composed of handwaving. Otherwise it would just produce fools and not thinkers like Ghandi, St. Augustine or hell, JRR Tolkien. Like it or not, valuable insight can result from an individual's religious beliefs.

And it's no less cuckoo to pretend that reality is much less complicated than it actually is. You can't handwave everything into a set of simple logical truths. To claim otherwise would be *puts on Spock ears* illogical, my dear.

But good luck becoming the new Kazan.  :p
« Last Edit: November 10, 2011, 10:22:42 pm by Mr. Vega »
Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.
-John Maynard Keynes

 

Offline watsisname

Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
I don't mind digressions. Problem is, you're just trolling my ass with your shenanigans, by making a vague accusation of my illiteracy or something.

Yeah you're very smart, I get it. Why don't you actually share your wits with us for a change?

http://www.osnews.com/story/22972/It_Doesn_t_Add_up_Mathematics_in_Wonderland

WHAT ABOUT IN MATHMAGIC LAND?
In my world of sleepers, everything will be erased.
I'll be your religion, your only endless ideal.
Slowly we crawl in the dark.
Swallowed by the seductive night.

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: On religion, atheism and changing thread titles....
I go by this:

1. Impale all the things.

I thought the idea was to nuke all the things.... it's so confusing...