There are plenty of ultra religious people who have no problem defying earthly authority. In fact, having the “backing” of God motivates and emboldens them to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. Like, they may believe that while killing an abortionist is violation of the law, it’s just a secular law. A Godly law always trumps secular laws. Human concerns are inherently trivial, to a person with this mindset.
A kid who worries about eternal hellfire does not necessarily grow up to be a kid who worries about jail or prison. And this actually isn’t a bad thing necessarily. Martin Luther King didn’t submit to authority.
You really don’t know this, though. It’s like saying that because you didn’t get lung cancer from smoking, it didn’t harm you in any way. You’re only looking at what happened but not at what could have been. Maybe if you hadn’t smoked, you would have been able to run a marathon. You could have met the girlfriend or boyfriend of your dreams.
I know that for me, personally I spent way too much time during my formative years sitting behind a pew being preached at. That was time I could have spent learning something useful. Perhaps my parents could have used 10% of their monthly income on enriching their children’s education rather than fattening Pastor’s wallet and gaining heavenly favor. Maybe we wouldn’t have had to go into family counseling if we had spent Sunday mornings eating pancakes and waffles in our PJ’s rather than falling asleep behind a pew.
Opportunity costs, in other words, should be factored into “harm.” But because it’s really difficult to assess “what could have been”, they are usually forgotten in the discussion. Religion’s opportunity cost is substantial, IMHO. It wastes resources (time, energy, and manpower) that could be used for productive and meaningful work. (Although I do concede that it is also provides opportunties too.)
Absolutely not. You entirely misinterpret my argument. If SDB exists, it would have to go hand in hand with science. My point is that we are merely scratching the surface of science when compared to what we would need to know to try and understand, disprove, or prove SDB.
That’s actually more or less the definition of an agnostic, which is what I am. Most atheists have come to the conclusion that there is no possible way that SDB, or God exists whatsoever. That is atheism at it’s heart. But there are gray areas which have been defined by other posters in this thread.
I absolutely agree with this.
Again, I agree with you.
The thing is, I don’t hold any true belief. I would be arguing just as fervently in the opposite direction if someone were arguing that it is “stupid” to not believe in God and “blatantly ridiculous and obnoxious” to think that God does not exist.
A lot of this has been me trying to figure out why some people are so dead set in their beliefs when there is no reason to be that way.
All of my descriptions and so-called “advocations” of SDB have simply been me trying to illustrate how science has NOT proven that SDB cannot exist; as some people seem to assume that science has.
Understandable. There have been 20+ posts in the last 12 hours alone. lol
I see. I do wish you would have cleared that up sooner because “unhealthy” has been a point of debate. lol
IMHO, having a spiritual belief or a reasonable religious belief is benign when it comes to the individual. Therefore, not exactly unhealthy. As for criss-crossing negative influences from biased religious beliefs, that is far to subjective to take a stab at.
Now it just seems like you’re putting the IPU up on a pedestal. It IS just an argument to make a point. Why would a limitless God or SDB have a singular corporeal form of an IPU? It wouldn’t.
The IPU argument is akin to telling a little boy that their imaginary badass friend who protects and loves them, is actually just a sissy ballerina. Why would their imaginary friend who doesn’t actually have any form, be a freakin ballerina? Are you trying to make the little boy angry? lol
My point is, the argument is instigative in nature and has already been admitted, by Voyager, that the argument originated to fend off religious zealots who were trolling an atheist forum!
Keep up! geeze
Whose to say that we aren’t the ones causing the problems. Bear with me here, say the Bible is true relative to it’s time. There were no contraceptives, so God said, “Hey jackasses,” don’t screw each other in the butt yet, you haven’t invented condoms so you might get aids!" The Bible also says, in eight different places, that people are not to eat shrimp, maybe shrimp at the time had high levels of Mercury or something, who knows. I’m making the point that the Bible is antiquated, but maybe it served it’s purpose and is in need of a modern rewrite. Another point is that ALL discrimination, and harm for that matter, that has come from religion has done so due to flawed human characteristics, not because of God.
This argument is thought provoking and definitely worth repeating to others, but I thought I basically eliminated it, by making the same point as cosmodan, only in a more detailed manner.
Absolutely, I think everything is explainable by science. I just think that the science required to explain, prove, or disprove SDB is far and beyond what we are capable of and probably will forever remain that way.
My apologies if this wasn’t a very good example to illustrate my point.
As stated previously in this post, that is not what I meant. I never implied that the Mpemba effect is a myth. I was simply making the point that we can only observe and deduce to a finite extent, and can’t even agree on a theory that explains the Mpemba effect.
Alright that’s fair enough. You may start another thread if you want. Post the link and I will participate, but I really just have one more question. Why exactly was Jearl comparing hot water to very hot water?
Please state the objective evidence for your SDB or ‘God’ or 'any deity".
Please state the objective evidence for the IPU. (note nowhere has anyone stated that the IPU must be “corporeal”)
Compare.
Now, try to understand that according to the null hypothesis - or the scientific method - we do not try to prove something does not exist - the default assumption is that “X does not exist”
X can be God, Pink Unicorns, Horses or anything else.
The first step is then to look for evidence that X exists - until you find some, the default assumption holds true.
If I were trying to help the little boy understand the nature of imaginary friends - he would eventually understand that his “pink ballerina” was just as powerful as his “baddass friend” against actual physical danger -
I’m not trying to make you angry - I’m trying to get you to understand plain and simple logic and/or reason.
“keep up” yourself - the argument is a simple exercise in logic and reason - that you can’t quite grok that is not a problem with the argument.
No, simster is exactly right. The IPU was to demonstrate that special pleading was a fallacy. It was not to keep anyone away - this was not a moderated group, and we didn’t want to anyhow. Evidence that a group worships X is not evidence that X exists. That involves detectible interaction with the rest of the world. No evidence that this has happened with the IPU or with God. As usual, anyone disagreeing is welcome to give this evidence - and defend it.
But God is timeless, remember? Maybe the people then had relatively primitive morals, but God didn’t. Do you think that a God would worry about it being too hard?
As for shrimp, nothing to do with mercury. If God had said, raw shrimp and undercooked shrimp is an abomination, it would have been just as good, right?
Hell, if God had commanded the use of decent sewers and not to take crap in streams he would have eliminated lots of illness.
If the hypothesis that the Bible contains only things that the people who wrote it could have known without supernatural advice is not falsified, there is no reason at all to introduce a supernatural element.
I agree with your last sentence - since God does not exist, nothing comes from him. However a lot of evil comes from belief. But that is neither here nor there - that no more falsifies god than the fact that good things comes from belief sometimes is evidence for God. It might be an argument against religion, but I thought you were against that anyway.
Your elimination has already been eliminated. If God knows that in Universe A horse B wins race C, how does his ability to make the horse lose in Universe Z refute the fact that he cannot make the horse lose in Universe A?
If I wasn’t clear, I was saying I think the Mpemba effect is probably a myth; not you. No need for a theory explaining it until it has been satisfactory proven it does exist. It kind of reminds me of the bar trick in getting a bottle of beer to go from liquid to freezing solid with just a simple solid tap.
Not sure, but after he, Cecil, and countless others to date not been able to replicate hot water freezing faster than cold water of which others kept making this claim, I suppose he’d try to get to the varying degrees of hot water, and I think he was dead-on with his explanation of the evaporation and smaller volumes of water freezing faster.
There’s no need. I really have no objection to the argument in itself. I have been objecting all along to the specific way it has been presented. I have already agreed with Voyager in post #158 about this matter. And what do you suppose an IPU is if it is not corporeal? If you need to sit here and amend the original statement or provide a detailed explanation showing how the IPU is too vague to have a corporeal form, then you are just serving to make my point. That point being, that given the sarcastic nonchalant way it is presented, it is really meant as an instigative remark, not a viable point.
That’s great, but the argument was not presented in any type of scientific manner. It was presented in a sarcastic manner designed to aggressively delegitimize a ‘believers’ POV by presenting a red herring argument.
What does being powerful have to do with it? The point is that the little boy’s imaginary friend is indefinable, then someone comes in and sarcastically compares his friend to something random that implies his friend is from “fairy neverland- a tale of rainbow unicorns.” A pink unicorn having most associations with little girls. So in reality, your point is a red herring and is politically incorrect.
Lol. Why would I be angry. The little boy in the analogy is a person of faith, not me…
That’s great, IF it is presented that way, which it was not presented that way in this discussion that I know of. From what I have seen, it seems to have been used more as a snarky remark to distract from the topic at hand.
So, given the context of my POV on the IPU, I am keeping up and you are not.
That’s fine, and I recognize your guys’ points being valid on that level. But read this and tell me it serves as a productive logic excersize and not as a sarcastic jab at people of faith.
Virtually everything I have said about the IPU can be traced back to this post(#12). Am I wrong in suggesting that a different, more tactful, fluid approach be taken?
When I said bear with me, it was indeed just an attempt to explore another area of thought. And I know it is trivial, but shrimp does have mercury, just low amounts compared to other fish and shellfish. My point was maybe it was really high back then in that region. Totally subjective, but possibly scientifically determinable.
You must not have seen my most recent response to your logical problem. Post #163 provides a new argument about the limitlessness of SDB and how SDB would inherently be infallible in your argument and in general when given all other attributes associated with an SDB. I don’t blame you if you didn’t see it. It was mixed in with a gigantic post. Here’s what I said:
“I suppose you are right when looking at it that way, but God would have to be infinitely omniscient to exist under these pretenses right? So in your scenario and others like it, God would have an infinite loop for this and would simply be able to say, “well I knew I would change that,” then, “well I knew that i knew I would change that,” and so on and so on. Even if he did alter something, it would already have been part of the preordained plan.”
Or maybe, once God had created everything, God then temporarily took away it’s own omniscience to the level of “almost omniscience” so that they could enjoy the dabbling on a lower level of consciousness. Kinda like how people get drunk to forget about their problems. lol"
My point is that any test we can come up with to show the fallibility would fail, there would always be an explanation behind the explanation. Omniscience would be infinite. I would think that if anyone was ever given a chance to present a problem like yours to SDB, SDB would simply blow the persons mind by showing them how it would all play out before the words ever left their mouth.
I’ve said this before, and so I apologize for repetition, but this always bothers me on Godelian grounds. If something is firmly declared to be “unknowable” that is equivalent to firmly declaring it “false.” If I could prove that a certain proposition in math, or logic, or science was “unknowable,” then I have just proven it “false.”
In theism, if I can demonstrate that no one can ever know whether there is a God, then I have demonstrated that no evidence for God’s existence will ever come to light.
I prefer a more moderate definition, in which God’s existence is unknown, and, at this point in time unknowable. A stronger declaration is making claims about the future, and is (in my opinion) much too strong.
[QUOTE=YoungKusher;]
And what do you suppose an IPU is if it is not corporeal?
[/QUOTE]
Do you not know what “invisible” means? IPU = (and always has) “Invisible Pink Unicorn”
[QUOTE=YoungKusher]
That’s great, IF it is presented that way, which it was not presented that way in this discussion that I know of. From what I have seen, it seems to have been used more as a snarky remark to distract from the topic at hand.
So, given the context of my POV on the IPU, I am keeping up and you are not.
[/QUOTE]
I never use it as snark - and its not been used in this thread as snark - as stated multiple times, it is used to show the special pleading that “God” gets that is not given to other “beings” that have the same amount of evidence (ie “none”) for their existence.
The snark comes from the responses - as yours adequately demonstrates.
Your POV on the IPU has been demonstrated as incorrect - or you are being deliberately dishonest - which is it?
Maybe you should read a little more of the thread. I already answered this question. Also Votager kindly explains that the IPU argument was constructed specifically to deal with special pleading from believers.
and if you continue reading - you’ll understand more about the question itself. I’ve even clarified what ‘agnostic’ means since that response.
If you answered the question - as to the belief or not in the IPU (and why) - be so kind as to repeat the answer or point to the post in which you answered it.
No, you don’t get the context it’s being discussed in in this thread.
Do you not see how that is irrelevant to my point? The fact that it has been given form at all means it doesn’t matter if it is invisible. AND, invisible doesn’t mean it’s not there, it means you can’t see it.
[/QUOTE]
That’s great, I never said you use it as a snark. ? Lol, it doesn’t matter if you say it hasn’t been used as a snark, because it has been used as a snark. Read post #12, or just read my posts in their entirety instead of snipping out segments that don’t capture my point.
It has not once been used to productively show how special pleading is wrong in this topic. That idea was only introduced into this thread more recently by Voyager. As I have already said, I don’t object to an analogy that would demonstrate such a point, but I don’t think the IPU does a very good job of that. Like I have said multiple times in this thread, if you replace IPU with the “Universe,” it will likely sit much better with people than an Invisible…Pink…Unicorn… Therefore sending the point home instead of essentially insulting their belief in an indirect manner.
False. You obviously haven’t read all of my posts.
Incorrect in the sense that my POV does not include generations of discussions from other forums that I took no part in?
Other than that, my POV is perfectly legitimate. Why don’t you at least take the time to read my entire last post, specifically my comments to Voyager. Maybe then you will understand where the debate has come from.
The reason you simply don’t get the IPU argument -
You keep implying that people are saying the IPU == GOD - that by ‘equating’ GOD with the IPU we are being insulting to the believers - this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the IPU argument. Which is that the IPU simply represents “another creature” that believers in GOD quickly dismiss without question (similar to Santa Clause, Vampires, Zombies, etc) - for the same reason that atheists dismiss GOD - “lack of evidence” for the critter in question.
That you keep saying that if you substitute “universe” for IPU shows you don’t understand the argument - as the Universe clearly and objectively exists - GOD does not - if you are trying to say that “GOD is the Universe” is just more special pleading - to the point that the argument that ‘GOD EXISTS’ becomes completely nonsensical.
Calling it the “invisible” pink unicorn is to put it in the same realm as the “invisible” (ie “non observable”) GOD that many others believe in. It gives it “no form” or “solidity” - the ONLY reason it gives it form is because we have images and an idea of what a unicorn looks like based on mythology and fantasy.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record – and maybe I’m just being obtuse – I have to raise once again the vast difference between abstract spiritual belief and organized religion. To the question “does God exist?” I answer that the question isn’t meaningful because there is too broad a range of definition. On one hand there is God as an abstraction inferred from the belief that science has intrinsic limitations, sort of analogous to the Gödel incompleteness theorem in mathematics. On the other hand there is the God of dogmatic scriptures whose existence is a fabrication rooted in political motives and the desire to control behaviors. There certainly seems to be general agreement among serious Biblical scholars that much of the Gospels were essentially revisionist history written for the express purpose of reinforcing a belief system.
The same semantic ambiguity exists with the definition of atheism. If an “atheist” is someone who regards most of the dogma of organized religion as unscientific claptrap, then I probably am one, too. But if an atheist is someone who rejects any definition of God because it can’t be accommodated in [present-day] science, then I am reminded of Hamlet’s rebuke to Horatio that “there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy.”
The statement that the truth-value of the claims is “unknown” is a perfectly valid thing to say.
But I’m quibbling over anyone saying “The truth or falsehood of the claims is unknowable.” To me, declaring something “unknowable” is indistinguishable from declaring it to be false. It’s saying, “We don’t know today…and we will never know.” That would rule out, as an impossibility, any future discovery of convincing evidence.
It says, in effect, “There will never be a worldwide revelation.” Such a thing would make God known…and if his existence is “unknowable,” that can’t happen.
Unknown today? Valid. “Unknowable?” Too strong a thing to say…IMO.
