# Der Trihs should have SOME qualifications...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [August 17, 2012, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758 "2012-08-17T08:52:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/41 "2012-08-18T01:54:22Z")
> [@lurking\_guest](#):
>
> Let’s listen to Der Trihs versus two particle and theoretical physicits… John Polikinghorne or John Lennox.
>
> I doubt Der Trhis can rub two mathematical systems together and exlude all Christian ‘takers.’
>
> But he tries, and tries and tries and tries…
>
> According to him - Der Trihs - anyone who belives in God, represented by Jesus Christ - well… there is nothing lower on the ‘Humanitarian Scale.’
>
> So now, I’ll ask:
>
> Der Trihs - he of the Occam’s Razor standard - where do YOU stand against these guys?
>
> Of course! They are FOOLS and YOU are …significant?
>
> Show us your credentials for your beliefs.
>
> Idiot.
>
> You may be the brightest little snowflake your folks and co-workers have ever seen - but hey, fella, YOU cannot hold a candle to Polkinghorne or Lennox.
>
> And if you believe yourself to be ‘smarter’, more ‘accomplished’, more ‘knowledgable’ more …whatever…giddyup…
>
> A message board is just exactly your domain.
Jesus, not you again. :smack:
---
### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/42 "2012-08-18T04:05:34Z")
> [@Ace309](#):
>
> Jesus, not you again. :smack:
Jesus? He’s Jesus? Wow! I thought he was just some clod.
(Are the two mutually exclusive?)
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### Author:  [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/43 "2012-08-18T11:04:30Z")
> [@coffeecat](#):
>
> Cite for Einstein? (Not that it proves anything besides one man’s beliefs.)
[Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein) are his religious views.
Then there’s [this drivel](http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/religion/a/einstein_god.htm), lol.
---
### Author:  [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/44 "2012-08-18T11:56:03Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#):
>
> [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein) are his religious views.
Neither conventionally religious nor atheist.
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### Author:  [@Makeitstop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Makeitstop)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/45 "2012-08-18T12:29:36Z")
Yeah, he seems to have prefered the term agnostic. He even said he rejected the term atheist.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/46 "2012-08-18T15:47:16Z")
[QUOTE=Makeitstop]
Yeah, he seems to have prefered the term agnostic. He even said he rejected the term atheist.
[/QUOTE]
For what it’s worth, though, Einstein notes that people who feel as he does have been regarded as atheists:
> [@](#):
>
> this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
>
> How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.
>
> We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically, one is inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events - provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/47 "2012-08-18T16:21:56Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#):
>
> If I choose not to decide I still have made a choice?
Of course. Your **choice** was to, in your own words, “_choose_ not to decide”.
Later on we can tackle the question of whether you’ve made a **decision**.
😛
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/48 "2012-08-18T16:28:58Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#):
>
> Oh shit! I knew that, and I didn’t mean to imply he isn’t!
>
> Of course, “Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking _are_ both atheists” wouldn’t be right either. Isn’t past tense acceptable in this situation?
_“The list of smart atheists, both living and dead, includes both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.”_
Hmm. With that sentence structure, it might be a good idea to include Irwin Schroedinger.
How’s this:
_“The list of smart atheists, encompassing both living atheists and dead atheists, includes both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.”_
---
### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/49 "2012-08-18T16:35:00Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> Of course. Your **choice** was to, in your own words, “_choose_ not to decide”.
Those weren’t his words. In case you didn’t realize, those are song lyrics.
---
### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/50 "2012-08-18T17:56:09Z")
> [@Kimstu](#):
>
> all personal convictions about the existence or nonexistence of a supernatural being which is by definition unknowable via any non-supernatural empirical or logical approach
I hate false equivalence.
The point of science is to find out about the Universe. It does that by constructing predictive frameworks that explain observational evidence and allow us to predict the outcome of new experiments. We call those frameworks ‘theories’. Into theories we fit ‘laws’, which are equations we use to quantitatively predict what is likely to happen in any given scenario. The ultimate difference between a theory and a law is that a law doesn’t attempt to explain anything; it merely attempts to predict the behavior of given system for which it is relevant.
Now, one of the most important tools science has is that it can discard parts of theories that add no predictive power. The classic example of this is Russel’s Teapot: If I say there’s a teapot in orbit around Mars, but it always evades sensors and nothing we can ever do will detect it, you’d rightly say that my teapot-including theories are overcomplicated by precisely one teapot and that the teapot needs to go unless and until we see evidence for it.
You can apply that logic to phlogiston: Fire doesn’t work based on some mysterious element called ‘phlogiston’ that is undetectable except to the extent it causes fires. It works based on the same theories that allow atoms to stick together and explain light and electricity and why glass is clear and silver is not. The over-arching theory (called Quantum Electrodynamics, by the way) is better than the phlogiston theory because, one, it explains more, two, it allows for more predictions, and, three, it’s simpler because it removes phlogiston.
God is, in some sense, the ultimate phlogiston: Accepting God into theories reduces their predictive power, because “Nobody can know the mind of God” and similar, and greatly over-complicates them by forcing them to include something that is an exception to every law and generally outside the system.
So science does tell us what to do here: Dump God unless we come across stuff we can only explain using a God.
(Also: Science is provisional, religion is dogmatic. History shows that dogmas get battered and bruised bloody by reality.)
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/51 "2012-08-18T19:14:47Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> _“The list of smart atheists, both living and dead, includes both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.”_
>
> Hmm. With that sentence structure, it might be a good idea to include Irwin Schroedinger.
> How’s this:
>
> _“The list of smart atheists, encompassing both living atheists and dead atheists, includes both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.”_
Einstein was, and Hawking is, an atheist.
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### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/52 "2012-08-18T22:53:23Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> How’s this:
>
> _“The list of smart atheists, encompassing both living atheists and dead atheists, includes both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.”_
_"Amongst the smart atheists, encompassing both living atheists and dead atheists, are such diverse elements as Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Fear, Surprise, Ruthless Efficiency, An Almost Fanatical Devotion To The Pope and… "_
I’ll come in again.
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2012, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/53 "2012-08-18T23:54:39Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> _"Amongst the smart atheists, encompassing both living atheists and dead atheists, are such diverse elements as Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Fear, Surprise, Ruthless Efficiency, An Almost Fanatical Devotion To The Pope and… "_
> I’ll come in again.
I wasn’t expecting that.
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### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2012, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/54 "2012-08-19T06:11:37Z")
> [@Smeghead](#):
>
> Einstein was, and Hawking is, an atheist.
I take it from your use of the past tense that Einstein ceased to be an atheist. Did this cessation occur due to death or due to a conscious choice while alive? And if the former, do you mean that he ceased to be an atheist only in the sense that he ceased to be anything at all (ie he died), or do you mean upon dying he became, in an afterlife, a theist?
Clarity is _so_ important 😉
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### Author:  [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/55 "2012-08-19T17:46:22Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> > [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#):
> >
> > If I choose not to decide I still have made a choice?
>
> Of course. Your **choice** was to, in your own words, “_choose_ not to decide”.
>
> Later on we can tackle the question of whether you’ve made a **decision**.
>
> 😛
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Those weren’t his words. In case you didn’t realize, those are song lyrics.
Specifically, [“Freewill”](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rush/freewill.html), by Rush, in case you (or anyone else) are curious, **kaylasdad99**.
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2012, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/56 "2012-08-19T18:48:51Z")
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> I take it from your use of the past tense that Einstein ceased to be an atheist. Did this cessation occur due to death or due to a conscious choice while alive? And if the former, do you mean that he ceased to be an atheist only in the sense that he ceased to be anything at all (ie he died), or do you mean upon dying he became, in an afterlife, a theist?
>
> Clarity is _so_ important 😉
When he died and his immortal soul was hauled up before our Lord and Savior, he awoke from the error of his ways, and is no longer an atheist.
So…both. 😃
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/57 "2012-08-19T21:05:43Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#):
>
> Specifically, [“Freewill”](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rush/freewill.html), by Rush, in case you (or anyone else) are curious, **kaylasdad99**.
Rush? Isn’t he that hate-radio guy?
😉
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### Author:  [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2012, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/58 "2012-08-19T22:36:31Z")
I hear his hate radio show is tolerable while reading Charlie and the Chocolate factory. Totally syncs up in fact…
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2012, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/59 "2012-08-25T07:57:47Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> He will make ridiculous untrue statements in any thread he participates in. So wait for him to do so, then post demands for evidence. He will leave the thread and never come back, like the cowardly little weasel that he is.
So if **DT** is a cowardly little weasel for this type of behaviour, what would we call [someone](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15408264&postcount=13) who does the same sort of thing in GQ?
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### Author:  [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2012, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs-should-have-some-qualifications/631758/60 "2012-09-01T18:58:03Z")
> [@princhester](#):
>
> may og have mercy on the op’s soul for posting in the incorrect forum.
>
> When on the boards, worship as the board’s god requires.
🙂
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