[Aardwolf]

and this is why the attitude persists, if someone is wrong, you can ignore them and let them continue on or confront them and maybe change their mind

An interesting point.

Ultimately atheists and Christians cannot both be right, nor can Muslims and Hindus, nor Zoroastrians and Shintos. Though they may have much in common, if they make any specific (falsifiable) claims, but disagree on these claims, then one or both must be wrong. And if they don't make any falsifiable claims, then <words to the effect of Derp>.

The "correct" way to settle this would be to sit down with someone who disagrees with you, and discuss the matter logically until there is no more disagreement... but of course that doesn't happen.

[Kosh]

and this is why the attitude persists, if someone is wrong, you can ignore them and let them continue on or confront them and maybe change their mind

An interesting point.

Ultimately atheists and Christians cannot both be right, nor can Muslims and Hindus, nor Zoroastrians and Shintos. Though they may have much in common, if they make any specific (falsifiable) claims, but disagree on these claims, then one or both must be wrong. And if they don't make any falsifiable claims, then <words to the effect of Derp>.

The "correct" way to settle this would be to sit down with someone who disagrees with you, and discuss the matter logically until there is no more disagreement... but of course that doesn't happen.

Skeptical atheists such as myself don't believe in god simply because it is non-falsifiable, there is no way to test for the existence of god and there's no real evidence for its existence, nor will there ever be. The problem is the vast majority of this planet simply has not woken up to that.

[Aardwolf]

And yet, equally non-falsifiable arguments for the existence of such things as the IPU or FSM generally fail to impress.

Damnation!

[Bobboau]

And if they don't make any falsifiable claims, then...

they are idiots too cowardly to make a claim because they know they are wrong but don't want what they believe to not be true, so when ever they come across something that could prove them wrong they ignore it.

[Luis Dias]

The point is that if there were no religion they'd be fighting over ethic reasons.

Northern Ireland...

EDIT:

Thing is, all this barbarism displayed in the middle east and northern Africa is quite depressing and painful, however what really worries me is the slow building up of the cold war between Israel and Iran. I can somewhat trust the Israelites with their bombs since they have (1) proven till today that they aren't lunatics out to destroy their enemies with nukes without concern with their own (that is, they behave rationally), and (2) they seem a very civilized people. To a point, that is. The extremists are rising in their influence in Israel, and otoh, Iran's leaders do not shed any glimmer of hope regarding their own sanity and rationality whatsoever.

IOW, Iran is leaded by crazy theological fundies, which are about to build their first atom bombs. These people actually believe that if they destroy Israel, they will fasten the arrival of the twelve Imann and this has alledgedly some amazing metaphysical consequences, etc. The question running through my mind is, "how" insane are these people? Are they sufficiently insane to press the buttons because they really believe this ****? Or do they still have the minimum of fear engraved in their hearts with doubts?

And the point is, I shouldn't be having these doubts. When Sting sang "I hope the russians love their children too" it was true and enough. However with musllims it is not enough. A crazy who believes that a nuclear armaggedon won't bring death and destruction, tears and suffering, but joy and heaven for all their dead children is the most terrifying nightmare for all rational and common sense people (and of course I'm including the majority of religious people).

[karajorma]

Northern Ireland is hilarious cause it ceased to be about religion so long ago that most people involved couldn't even give a real reason why they are fighting now.

Look at the example in the original post where someone was killed for displaying a symbol of faith and now look at Northern Ireland and ask yourself when did you ever hear of anything happening that was directly caused by someone being the wrong faith? It's nothing to do with that now, it's all about nationalism. While the sides might have been drawn up based on religious differences the argument long ago ceased to be about that.

[Dragon]

If Iran develops nukes, they won't (most likely) be able to deliver them at anything important in Israel. The latter military is just too advanced compared to Iran (which is using vehicle types that are on display in Israeli museums). On the other hand, given it's history and current tendencies, Israel might attempt to flatten Iran (which they are perfectly capable of, considering their arsenal) if some loon gets to power at wrong time.

[Luis Dias]

If Iran develops nukes, they won't (most likely) be able to deliver them at anything important in Israel.

And this prediction is until when? When is Iran ready to "deliver" the goods? 5 years? 10 years? 20? Is that too far away for us to be relieved? It's a ticking bomb.

The latter military is just too advanced compared to Iran (which is using vehicle types that are on display in Israeli museums). On the other hand, given it's history and current tendencies, Israel might attempt to flatten Iran (which they are perfectly capable of, considering their arsenal) if some loon gets to power at wrong time.

I just don't think they'll elect such lunatic for any foresseable time.

[Kosh]

If Iran develops nukes, they won't (most likely) be able to deliver them at anything important in Israel. The latter military is just too advanced compared to Iran (which is using vehicle types that are on display in Israeli museums). On the other hand, given it's history and current tendencies, Israel might attempt to flatten Iran (which they are perfectly capable of, considering their arsenal) if some loon gets to power at wrong time.

If Iran got nukes Israel wouldnt be their main target, more likely the target would be one of their sunni rivals, particularly Saudi Arabia.

[Nuke]

if any of the smaller scale nuclear powers ****s with the us you can rest assured that their countries would be reduced to radioactive slag. though i think many of them can have small scale nuclear wars that the rest of us dont give a **** about enough to launch any warheads of our own, as cool as that would be.

[Firstdragon34]

If that did happen, then you can be rest assured the Radiation would effect the rest of the Earth. So, the miniature nuclear wars would sneak up and bit you in the ***.

[NGTM-1R]

Skeptical atheists such as myself don't believe in god simply because it is non-falsifiable

You're not very good at this skepticism thing, are you?

A non-falsifiable claim is not inherently wrong; there's simply no way to test it and so truth and falsity cannot be determined. You are in saying you do not believe because you cannot know if you should, which is pretty much anti-skeptical and anti-science.

If you cannot know what the answer is, it would behoove you to remain open-minded on the subject.

I just don't think they'll elect such lunatic for any foresseable time.

If you think our right-wingers are bat****, you haven't even scratched the surface of the lunacy that is the right-wing Jewish parties in Israel.

[Nuke]

If that did happen, then you can be rest assured the Radiation would effect the rest of the Earth. So, the miniature nuclear wars would sneak up and bit you in the ***.

frankly the nukes in our arsenal are tiny compared to what we had during the cold war. and the nukes belonging to everyone else are primitive at best. the us is actually one of the most nuked countries on the planet, just point google earth at the nevada test site. see! nukes are good for you!

[Grizzly]

A few days after the Hiroshima bombing, the Hiroshima radiation levels were back to normal, according to US analysts (which makes sense, as an A-Bomb is supposed to discharge all its energy as soon as possible).

The public however, is not quite aware of this, probably because the genetic defects caused by those few days of radiation to those in the area are rather persistant.

If you think our right-wingers are bat****, you haven't even scratched the surface of the lunacy that is the right-wing Jewish parties in Israel.

Israeli's pay more attention to the ban of un-sedated ritual slaughter  (This might be awfull English) in Holland then to the damn Euro crisis... I read an article on what the media in Israel is focusing on, this is more or less what I remember from it.

[Flipside]

Well, thing is with the Netherlands is that this veer to the right is significant in more ways than the banning of Halal meat, for a country that has been famous for its Liberalism, it is sad to see that culture slowly being eroded in the name of preserving it.

[Kosh]

You're not very good at this skepticism thing, are you?

A non-falsifiable claim is not inherently wrong; there's simply no way to test it and so truth and falsity cannot be determined. You are in saying you do not believe because you cannot know if you should, which is pretty much anti-skeptical and anti-science.

If you cannot know what the answer is, it would behoove you to remain open-minded on the subject.

Ad Hom. Actually how science works is if something is not testable it is assumed not to be true until proven otherwise in a properly scientific manner. When it comes to superstitious and supernatural nonsense, keeping an open mind about that stuff is keeping it so open that your brain falls out, a big no no in skepticism.

So I'm quite a bit better than you give me credit for.

[Scotty]

Science, by its very nature, does not prove, it disproves.  Try again.

[deathfun]

Since there's been a few religion related threads, I figured I'd just post this here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/11/iraq.humanrights?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

Two weeks ago, The Observer revealed how 17-year-old student Rand Abdel-Qader was beaten to death by her father after becoming infatuated with a British soldier in Basra...
...'Death was the least she deserved,' said Abdel-Qader. 'I don't regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion,' he said.

[Grizzly]

Well, thing is with the Netherlands is that this veer to the right is significant in more ways than the banning of Halal meat, for a country that has been famous for its Liberalism, it is sad to see that culture slowly being eroded in the name of preserving it.

You are unfortunately quite right, but it is not as if it is affecting Israel in a significant way, whilst the euro crisis most certainly does.

[Kosh]

Science, by its very nature, does not prove, it disproves.  Try again.

Um, no. No new theories of any kind are ever assumed to be true, it is assumed to be false until there is undeniable, replicatable, and verfied evidence acquired through sound experimentation and/or observation to support said theory. God/Ra/Zues/whatever cannot be tested for which makes it impossible to prove or disprove, rendering the theory false by default. Whenever the rules are loosened to include the possibility of any sort of divine entities or other superstitious and supernatural nonsense, anything goes and we might as well just throw up our hands and say "god did it!"




Skepticism isnt about keeping an open mind, it's about verifying and proving things to filter out the junk.


EDIT: I'll also take this a step further by citing the example of the early development of atomic theory. It wasn't well accepted that atoms existed at all until the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Why? Because until then there was no proof to support it.

EDIT2: Fixed picture