A response to Richard Dawkins' argument against the existence of God.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Dr.Colossus

oh, no. i said science DID use superstition to fill in the gaps, historically. and i stand by it. science, superstition and magic all existed next to and intertwined with eachother. us modern people think we got it all figured out, but rememeber using leeches was (and in some places still is) considered science.

You don’t know what “science” means, do you? No. Scienctific method never filled in gaps with “superstition.” You are mistaken. People filled in gaps with superstition, not science. Science filled in the gaps by discovering more knowledge…

i thought that was called agnostic?

Agnosticism is the poistion that it’s impossible to know if God exists.

Atheism is simply the lack of theistic belief.

why can’t that be God?

Who says it can’t? Why can’t it be the Flying Spaghetti Monster or telepathic weevils on Jupiter? It’s fun to make things up, but we don’t have any REASON to hypothesize any of those things.

Do you go around considering supernatural explanations for everything? Do you ever wonder if thunder might be caused by Thor’s hammer? Why bother to imagine sky gods as a cause for something that has a perfectly well understood natural cause?

what’s the science of meditation? it’s still speculative and not 100% transparently explainable, testable in double blinds and with constant results. it’s elusive and strange. sure you can host theories and have “supporting evidence” but not proof. things of this nature get hazey and odd.

This appears to be some kind of God of the gaps attempt, but not a very good one. What makes you think that meditation is not understood? What do you think is mysterious about it?

[Voyager]

[quote=“dontbesojumpy, post:176, topic:514544”]

@Voyager

.
Christianity precludes anyone that’s not a christian from any salvation (which is another way of saying FINDING or knowing God.) i do not believe that the christian bible is the only way of knowing God. i grew up as the son of a pastor and never bit on all that jive. the bible is too convoluted to be taken as 100% imfallible. that being said, religious texts (devine docturines) could exist, but so much about religion has been bastardized for the sake of individual control that it’s a mucky mess.

Fine. But do you deny that Christians have had the same sort of revelations as you’ve had? Ones where they claim to have sensed Jesus? Why are your internal revelations any more accurate than theirs? I’m sure you learned as a kid that there are (admittedly implausible) explanations for every contradiction and bit of nonsense in the Bible. Tom Pain listed them over 200 years ago, and they weren’t new then.

oh, no. i said science DID use superstition to fill in the gaps, historically. and i stand by it. science, superstition and magic all existed next to and intertwined with eachother. us modern people think we got it all figured out, but rememeber using leeches was (and in some places still is) considered science.

Science slowly evolved, and there were plenty of natural philosophers and doctors not doing science even after Newton and Galileo. I believe that there are actually medically tested applications of leeches today, btw.

i thought that was called agnostic?

Nope. Atheism is the lack of belief in any god, which also includes the active belief that there is no god. Agnosticism means the belief that god is not knowable, either positively or negatively. Search for the term - this debate comes up here all the time.

why can’t that be God? why can’t that be an answered prayer? if, scientifically speaking, i believe when i ‘meditate’ or pray, or ask for divine guidance, and something internal happens that makes me more akin to solve said problems, how is that not an anwered prayer? explain that. what’s the science of meditation? it’s still speculative and not 100% transparently explainable, testable in double blinds and with constant results. it’s elusive and strange. sure you can host theories and have “supporting evidence” but not proof. things of this nature get hazey and odd.

Subjective things can only be reported on, not measured directly. I have a very smart subconscious mind, much smarter than my conscious one, and I let it solve problems all the time. I never, ever, pray for an answer. If I did, I might be able to convince myself that god answered my prayer for a solution - but that would be uncalled for.
Someone claiming to get inspiration from outside needs to show it includes information they did not have. There are many problems in the world that a deity could solve with information unknown to anyone, information which can be confirmed. However all we actually get is bushwah and platitudes available in every self-help book. Have god tell you if P = NP. (Look it up under complexity of algorithms.) That is far more useful information than learning that god means for us to be happy.

I want to make some points about your long post about science. There are many scientists and engineers around here, quite a few with Ph.Ds, so you are not going to do well with such a basic misunderstanding of what science is and how it works.
First, scientific proof, as has already been mentioned several times, is not a valid concept. There is proof in math. All scientific results are provisional. Your statement on drugs makes me think you got your information from late night TV ads or misunderstood the real results. The limitations of all clinical trials is well known. They all come with information about the sample size and distribution, and all scientific results of tests come with a number representing the probability that the results were obtained not from the hypothesis (in this case, the drug works) being demonstrated but instead by chance. If a drug has a bad side effect on bald 50 year olds, and hardly any were in the study, the test will likely miss this.
This provisional acceptance of results is why there is no faith in science. Hardly anything had more evidence than Newton’s Laws, yet when Einstein showed how they were incomplete, and experimental evidence showed Einstein was right, there was a mass and rapid acceptance of relativity.
You mentioned that you have faith that other drivers will obey the laws. I hope you get over this, very quickly, since if you don’t you will be in lots of accidents. I don’t have this faith. When the light turns green, I damn well check that no joker is running the red light in the other direction. Ever hear of defensive driving? I suggest you practice it.
Science, of course, does not work on voting. One good experiment trumps any amount of opinion. All the people believing in all the religions means nothing also. Lots of people believe in crap like astrology without it being true.
Power of prayer? The only experiment I know of which supposedly demonstrated this was done by a con artist, working with suckers from Columbia. He made up the data, he went to jail (for other crimes, I believe) the paper got withdrawn and everyone wound up with egg on their faces. A later more rigorous experiment showed no impact, except that cancer patients who knew they were being prayed for had worse outcomes than the control group. Of course there were lots of objections about not testing god and not knowing if someone else had prayed for these people; objections curiously absent when the first experiment seemed to show prayer worked. Have any others?
An active God would change our world quite a bit. What if he intervened in war? What if he randomly influenced the outcome of football games the way some players seem to claim? Who’d bet until they found which side God was on? You seem to be assuming a non-activist god, and that is because you are at least with it enough to know that your god only can existence if the world with him existing looks exactly the same as the world of science where the god hypothesis is not necessary. You have made a lot of claims for evidence of god, but haven’t shown us any yet.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Dr.Colossus

a few points:
on the necessity of God existing: you misinterpret what i mean. i said in a well-oiled (functioning) universe, God need not exists; that is to say that once the grand contraption was set in motion, letting it go and do what it was designed to do would be next. for instance, when you play the sims. or robots that are created to perform tasks; ie the ‘letting.’

Even assuming we slap the label “God” on whatever created the universe, I don’t
see how that translates to something that is involved in human existence on an ongoing basis, i.e. something that responds to prayers. Humans have only been around for the merest blip compared to the universe itself, after all.

simple, but i think if we created a universe that could function and evolve on its own, we’d let it. in more simple terms, as we grow up and our parents let us grow up when we ‘no longer need them.’ that lack of necessity.

I don’t know of a time where it could be said the human race had “parents”. Despite myths and legends and scripture and such, there’s not much in human history that we can’t explain through mundane biochemistry. I’m not aware of anything that requires a supernatural intervention, though I’m aware that many people still think the Egyptian Pyramids couldn’t possibly have been built by humans alone, for example.

Anyway, the faith you describe is readily interchangable with other forms of faith, without an objective fact to be found. Whether or not God (however you define it)exists, it’s safe to say that religion has no solid foundation simply because it changes so arbitrarily. Science, by contrast, gradually refines itself by replacing ideas that work with ideas that work better.

An example I like is the hypothetical eighth-day bible, in which a person prints and publishes a version of Genesis that is like pretty much every other copy of Genesis with one minor change - God creates the universe in seven days and rests on the eighth. Is this new version better or worse than the existing one? How could you tell? What test could you design to determine which one is better? If neither is better, then what’s the objective value of either?

And, seriously, make an effort at standard capitalization and formatting.

[Snag]

@Dr.Colossus

anyway, we cannot test all that we know in science (as individuals, in practice). but we believe what other scientists claim to have tested and what their data reflects. now, i call the world’s belief in those findings as FAITH.

we all function on faith. i do not perceive faith as a moral or religious artifact, but rather as a necessary function of human existence.

we function on faith daily–every time we drive we have faith that other drivers will obey traffic laws.
you, men of science, have faith that the findings of science are true (unless of course, you individually test these things).

how many of you have been to the sun? no one. but we all agree on so many facts, proofs, and theories related to our sun. all of that is on faith, even if it’s corraborated with others. when tested in your faith, you cite evidence. often that evidence is nothing you’ve witnessed, often it’s intangible, theoretically, mathmatical, or otherwise something you can only explain, but not show or prove.

Just weighing in on my personal pet peeve. Faith is essentially belief in something that cannot be proven. Trust, as I see it, is when time and time again a belief in someone or something is backed up with consistent proof. I don’t have faith in science. I have trust in science and math because there is a clear record of how working theories and laws and principles came to be. This is exactly the opposite of believing in something without evidence, which is faith.

I have a trust in science because the empirical evidence is true across all branches of science. It is not unusual when an unsolved problem in one branch is solved when someone working on a different problem in another branch of science uses the same laws of nature to not only find a solution for the problem they are solving, but now they have also found another solution for something they may not have even been aware of. It is a truth that is proven. No faith needed.

I agree that we do operate on faith in some day to day instances in life, such as driving with other drivers or instances where we don’t have enough data to make a decision on trustworthiness but we must jump in anyway. But I bet most others here who value science would agree they do so because it is a system built entirely on trust and verification.

[Snag]

Might I also add that science does not and cannot operate on intangibles. Quantum mechanics dictates how nuclear processes work with astounding accuracy. What works in particle accelerators works for the sun. We’ve learned about both quantum physics and cosmology because the same laws and equations work both ways. The same equations used to direct where a cannon ball will fly work exactly the same for the sun. The math in general relativity said there must be black holes, and told the astrophysicists what they should see if looking for them. And lo and behold, just as the math predicted - called the shots, predicted a future - when they looked they saw through their telescopes what the math said they should see if black holes existed.

Sorry, dontbesojumpybut science is nowhere near as fuzzy as you would like it to be.

No, we have not been to the sun but we’ve had satellites in orbit around it.

[Fantome]

@Snag

Faith is essentially belief in something that cannot be proven.

…

I agree that we do operate on faith in some day to day instances in life, such as driving with other drivers

I drive almost every day and I have zero faith in anything. I’d change your definition of faith above to “belief in something which has insufficient evidence.”

When I get in a car I don’t have faith that I will get to my destination alive; I have evidence that driving is a fairly safe mode of transportation and I practice safe driving habits and I’m confident in my skills as a defensive driver. I accept that there is some level of risk involved and I’m okay with that.

or instances where we don’t have enough data to make a decision on trustworthiness but we must jump in anyway.

Taking risks doesn’t require faith. If it did, the person wouldn’t feel it was a risk as they had faith everything was going to end up positive and the thrill of risk taking would be absent.

[CurtC]

Come on, folks - there are two common meanings to the word “faith.” If someone says that he has faith in his car’s brakes, he means that he trusts them. That trust is probably built upon past experience, but one meaning of “faith” is “trust.”

The other meaning is the one used in a religious context, where it means belief independent of any evidence.

Mixing up the two definitions of the word in order to try to make a point is known as equivocation, and it’s a logical fallacy.

Faith in car brakes is very different from faith in God.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

Not to mention that the “car brakes” kind of trust is qualified, not absolute. It’s an expectation, based on previous experience and knowledge, that the brakes have a high probability of working, not an absolute belief that they can’t possibly fail, just an expectation that they probably won’t.

[Latro]

@CurtC

Come on, folks - there are two common meanings to the word “faith.” If someone says that he has faith in his car’s brakes, he means that he trusts them. That trust is probably built upon past experience, but one meaning of “faith” is “trust.”

The other meaning is the one used in a religious context, where it means belief independent of any evidence.

Mixing up the two definitions of the word in order to try to make a point is known as equivocation, and it’s a logical fallacy.

Faith in car brakes is very different from faith in God.

Hmm, I’d rather think that faith is a very high level of trust.

I trust my brakes will work. When I leave home I don’t worry about them not working.
I don’t have faith that they will work. The last time I had to stamp on them I was very, very worried that they would fail me.

When someone says he has faith in God he is saying that he trusts the Lord, not to fail him. He places his life in God’s hands.

That’s how I’ve always understood it.
Having faith in his existence makes no sense to me.

[hotflungwok]

@Latro

Hmm, I’d rather think that faith is a very high level of trust.

I trust my brakes will work. When I leave home I don’t worry about them not working.
I don’t have faith that they will work. The last time I had to stamp on them I was very, very worried that they would fail me.

‘Trust’ can be a synonym for ‘faith’, depending on how it’s used. The only time this becomes a problem is when people try to use that old and tired argument about how people have ‘faith’ in science the same way people have ‘faith’ in god.

When someone says he has faith in God he is saying that he trusts the Lord, not to fail him. He places his life in God’s hands.

That’s how I’ve always understood it.
Having faith in his existence makes no sense to me.

‘Faith’ in the religious sense has to do with believing despite lack of evidence. God doesn’t have the track record science has, so even god’s existence has to be taken ‘on faith’. Even if your take on religious faith is that you think you’re just trusting in god, you’re still taking everything in the religion, including the existence of god, on faith, because of the lack of evidence.

[Snag]

@Fantome

I drive almost every day and I have zero faith in anything. I’d change your definition of faith above to “belief in something which has insufficient evidence.”

When I get in a car I don’t have faith that I will get to my destination alive; I have evidence that driving is a fairly safe mode of transportation and I practice safe driving habits and I’m confident in my skills as a defensive driver. I accept that there is some level of risk involved and I’m okay with that. Taking risks doesn’t require faith. If it did, the person wouldn’t feel it was a risk as they had faith everything was going to end up positive and the thrill of risk taking would be absent.

Sure, that’s essentially what I’m saying. When I drive I have a certain faith that 95% of the other drivers are competent and that if I keep an eye on those who don’t appear so competent, I’ll probably get there alive. I have no problem with your definition of faith, I would agree with that.

However, risk taking of any sort will require a certain lack of information, otherwise it would be a sure thing. The less of a risk taker that a person is the less that they will operate on faith. The more they will want a situation that they can trust and thus is less likely to fail them. And some of the ‘leaps of faith’ in our day to day life that I’m thinking about tend to be be pretty insignificant. But any step taken with one’s certainty that the outcome will be favorable despite lacking information is a step of faith. There are times though when one wants to avoid faith and go with the proven method or the proven person or past choice made.

Oh, and personally, I trust that my brakes will work. If I have to rely on a lack of evidence that they will, I’ll have them checked

[Snag]

@CurtC

Come on, folks - there are two common meanings to the word “faith.” If someone says that he has faith in his car’s brakes, he means that he trusts them. That trust is probably built upon past experience, but one meaning of “faith” is “trust.”

The other meaning is the one used in a religious context, where it means belief independent of any evidence.

Mixing up the two definitions of the word in order to try to make a point is known as equivocation, and it’s a logical fallacy.

Faith in car brakes is very different from faith in God.

While there are different meanings to the word faith, one of them is ‘belief that is not based on proof’ (dictionary.com). The definition of trust does not have that meaning and separates it from faith. Trust is about certainty, faith is not always so. One can have trust in god, but face it, the holy texts of different religions, in general, will expect you to believe in something that you cannot verify and expect you to do so if you want the promised goodies at the end of your life or whenever.

That is why I said I trust science to mostly be giving the right answers and some real insight into the fabric of reality. I can look around me at any time and see hundreds of examples that it works in the world we live in through the technology and knowledge that we use on a daily basis. I would argue that trust in god is not a valid term as it cannot be verified. Prove the god. Prove the thing that you claim is miraculous or marvelous emanated from the god that at you cannot show me. You cannot have trust without a certain amount of verification of some sort. That is not at all true with faith. You can have ‘faith’ in any old gobbledygook that you can pull out of your butt.

[Fantome]

@Snag

Sure, that’s essentially what I’m saying. When I drive I have a certain faith that 95% of the other drivers are competent and that if I keep an eye on those who don’t appear so competent, I’ll probably get there alive. I have no problem with your definition of faith, I would agree with that.

You agree with my definition of faith and you have that sort of faith? I have none of that faith when I drive or at any other time. I have evidence that driving is a relatively safe mode of transportation. I realize I may not get from point A to point B without getting a ticket, getting into a fender bender or dying but I choose to drive anyway.

However, risk taking of any sort will require a certain lack of information, otherwise it would be a sure thing. The less of a risk taker that a person is the less that they will operate on faith.

That’s not true. A complete pussy and a Mr. Macho risk taker can both live their lives with zero faith.

[cosmosdan]

@CurtC

Come on, folks - there are two common meanings to the word “faith.” If someone says that he has faith in his car’s brakes, he means that he trusts them. That trust is probably built upon past experience, but one meaning of “faith” is “trust.”

The other meaning is the one used in a religious context, where it means belief independent of any evidence.

Mixing up the two definitions of the word in order to try to make a point is known as equivocation, and it’s a logical fallacy.

Faith in car brakes is very different from faith in God.

That’s true but a lot of believers will tell you their faith is based on personal experience even if they can’t prove it or be 100% sure.

[hotflungwok]

@cosmosdan

That’s true but a lot of believers will tell you their faith is based on personal experience even if they can’t prove it or be 100% sure.

I had a personal experience which showed me that kids with wooden wands and mangled latin can cast spells, doesn’t mean I have to believe it’s true. There are many things that can mislead human perception and interpretation, all of which make better explanations than ‘goddidit’. Without any other corroborating evidence, subjective personal experience boils down ‘it’s true because I think it is’.

[cosmosdan]

@hotflungwok

I had a personal experience which showed me that kids with wooden wands and mangled latin can cast spells, doesn’t mean I have to believe it’s true. There are many things that can mislead human perception and interpretation, all of which make better explanations than ‘goddidit’. Without any other corroborating evidence, subjective personal experience boils down ‘it’s true because I think it is’.

Yep, but we all have to draw some conclusions from subjective personal experience. The important distinction IMO is realizing what you think may be true based on those subjective experiences doesn’t hold any real weight for others.

[Snag]

@Fantome

You agree with my definition of faith and you have that sort of faith? I have none of that faith when I drive or at any other time. I have evidence that driving is a relatively safe mode of transportation. I realize I may not get from point A to point B without getting a ticket, getting into a fender bender or dying but I choose to drive anyway.

I’m being a bit facetious about the faith when driving, although your confidence in statistics and driving conditions may be better than mine. I drive all the time too and feel pretty safe. But some of the bozos out make moves out of the blue often enough around me, and they are not always predicable. I think it’s dangerous to assume one has no blind spots. Though I probably have a trust level of driving closer to your own I always assume that I have 0% information about at least 10% of the people and situations around me. Reminding myself of that puts me more into a zone of being ready for something out of left field. IMO it makes for better defensive driving to just assume I’m going to need to improvise.

Or sometimes people suddenly find themselves in crucial situations where they are mostly blind but need to react on instinct and wit. They might not have time to gather all the best evidence when one has to make a decision right now, no excuses. The more the outcome looks dicey, the more it’s faith or inaction.

Not having good information of what’s going to happen but doing what you will anyway leans more into the category of faith. Everybody deals with it sometimes.

@Fantome

That’s not true. A complete pussy and a Mr. Macho risk taker can both live their lives with zero faith.

Faith is an operating procedure when you’re going to do something but you have little or no information on the the outcome will be. But you go ahead anyway. I think it’s a good idea to realize when one is in that faith zone or back into what you know and the world of what works well. Anyone who lives without any faith thinks the have all the answers. Or are so skillful that they may well exaggerate their own abilities.

Those who think they have all the answers and are rarely wrong and whom are ultimately proven to be correct are barely more populous than jackalope. The others deceive themselves and will lag behind. Even very smart people get blindsided by stuff, they make mistakes. Assuming some level of ignorance and trying to correct it is a safety measure. It forces you to consider plans B and C more often. It’s easier to improvise if you know such a section is coming up. I think few people don’t operate on some faith during the day. It may be mostly insignificant stuff, but if you’ve ever stayed in the game when the dice were turning against you, you’ve engaged in some faith, even if it’s only that the loses won’t really hurt so bad tomorrow.

Also risks can also sometimes be well calculated, especially if there is time available to consider enough choices.

[Fantome]

@Snag

Not having good information of what’s going to happen but doing what you will anyway leans more into the category of faith.

This was your definition of faith earlier:

“'belief that is not based on proof”

Is that still what we’re talking about here? Are you claiming I don’t have “good information” about what will happen to me on my drive to work? Fine. I don’t know I will not get ticketed, get in a fender bender, etc. Does that mean I believe nothing will happen to me on any of my future drives. No! I drive knowing that my life is in danger on every trip. None of my actions “leans more into the category of faith.”

Faith is an operating procedure when you’re going to do something but you have little or no information on the the outcome will be.

That has nothing in common with your earlier definition of faith. I can perform all kinds of risky activities in which I have little or no information on the the outcome will be and still have zero faith. Having faith would entail believing things were going to happen a certain way although I had no evidence for it. That sort of belief is not necessary to be a risk taker.

Anyone who lives without any faith thinks the have all the answers. Or are so skillful that they may well exaggerate their own abilities.

No, anyone who lives with faith thinks they have answers fully realizing there’s no good reason to. I have zero faith and I certainly don’t think I have all the answers. I don’t know why you believe that.

I think few people don’t operate on some faith during the day. It may be mostly insignificant stuff, but if you’ve ever stayed in the game when the dice were turning against you, you’ve engaged in some faith, even if it’s only that the loses won’t really hurt so bad tomorrow.

Wrong. I enjoy playing blackjack even though I know the odds are with the house. I don’t need faith to play and I have none.

[lurking_guest]

Oh, Jeebus Cripes.

Everyone trusts their “brakes” as does Diogenese.

Everyone trusts the fact that their house, that their kids that their employers, that their neighborhoods, their spouses are what they say they are and will remain what they say they are.

He he.

And they, sometimes…maybe often…don’t.

However…

These people will “Bet My Life”…that some, said individual will either “love” “support” them, “believe in” them, “fight-to-the-death-for them”…etc., etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

Their wife? Their children? Their parents? Their friends?

WHY would they believe this?

What would be the point?

Obviously, Diogenese “The Cynic” DOES NOT believe this.

A PURE guy who just sort of plays along with the norms and conformities of life… has a wife. Children. But never, EVER, succumbs to going along with ANY ‘norm’ …

A FREE personage.

Writes exstensively (or did) at the “Pizza Parlor” (an exlusively Christian site) -

but hangs here. On the “Dope.”

Writing to hope his views shock readers to accept his judgments.

With your sensitivities, Dio, yourself and your family can’t ask for any value whatsoever.

We’re born. (Maybe) We live. (For a while…perhaps.) We die. (To no value or significance whatsover.)

Other life forms come along.

So?

Right, Dio?

So, of course, what is the point?

Of your life? Or any other?

Blah, blah, blah…

Just one voice in the life of SEVEN BILLION others…

Lucky you for the Dope.

And for the folks here and at the Pizza Parlor who are AMAZED and astounded by your intelligence and reasoning…

You - Richard Dawkins - Cristopher Hitchens- and all of the other screwballs who claim to know “the first from the last”…

“Give me PROOF!” - "Give me “PROOF” …

Does your wife, your children, your family LOVE you?

What the HELL does that mean?

Do you FEEL it?

Can you PROVE it?

Does it matter?

Existentialism.
Nihilism.

Woe is me.

Life is just a great big ol’ turd.

(Which, of course, I can handle, because I believe in nothing but what I do for my job (which earns money) and by which, therefore, I can pay my way into tomorrow.

But OF COURSE we know you love your LIFE and your CHILDREN and your WIFE.

But we also know that NONE of it matters.

Not in the long term.

So.

What country, what form of government, what religion, what geographical location, what form of spirituality, what “number of days” doesn’t matter.

In the long term.

We’re all doomed to the same fate.

So…

Tra la…

Whatever form of government or religion or tribe or geography one is connected to…just keep on.

We all just rot and die anyway…

Why spend any time of our precious lives fighting for some other outcome?

Just get whatever you can from your circumstances.

Sort of like criminals or sciopaths do.

Selah.

Do you support them with your money?

Something more substantial than money? (Whatever that may be…)

How about Power? …but how do you get that without money?

So…

[Blut_Aus_Nord]

wtf was that