Pshaw, by their measurements I’m a member as well.
And I think ‘idiot’ is being used to refer to those who place blind faith in something that can’t possibly be tested for, yet alone proven.
Not to put words in anybody’s mouth of course.
With all due respect, why is it bigotry?
Certainly, the inclusion of ‘all’ makes almost any statement easily falsifiable, but what’s wrong with pointing out that, well, as far as logic, reason, and proof go, believing that you’ve got an invisible friend who’ll reward you in the Beforelife and fuck up your, er, I mean, His, enemies…
While I respect anybody’s right to hold their own opinions, surely you wouldn’t be arguing that someone who hoped that Zeus would save him was acting wisely? Who honestly believed that Zeus was watching out for him? That Zeus wanted him to do certian things? That Zeus would take him to the Elysian Fields as a reward for doing as told?
Why, then, do we have a different judgment about someone doing the same with Yahweh, Allah, Adanoi, Jesus, etc…?
That’s beautiful. I mean, some tinkering is in order since public schools in the U.S. don’t have religious tolerance classes, but dang - that’s it perfectly.
That’s what I meant when I said almost. We had “Religious Education”, which for a year or so was nothing but studying St. Paul’s letters to the Epehsians or something, before we were lucky enough to get a new, more enlightened teacher who went through all the major religions, explaining their beliefs and practices. “Religious Tolerance” classes exist only my secular dreamworld.
Good. Then you will easily comprehend Peano’s Axiom.
Do you believe that Peano’s Fifth Axiom is true? If so, can you prove it to be true?
You might not want to base any arguments on the lack of a proof for induction, know what I’m saying?
You can’t prove there’s no deities, either.
Theism and religion are not equivalent terms. One is a philosophy, the other is a set of rituals.
Many atheists are dogmatic in their beliefs. I hate dogma in any form.
And for the record, I’m totally against teaching creationism as a scientific theory, putting “under God” on money and in the pledge, and conducting prayer in schools. I think this despite being a total idiot.
Idiot. n. One who designs websites as atrocious as the Top One Percent Society website.
I like the description of the UK school system. I think that would be excellent. Everyone would have a much more factual and diverse study of both science and religion. I just thought the UK, having the Church of England, had a majority of christians, practicing or not.[ul][li]religion, [n] a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; “he lost his faith but not his morality” (hehe, nice example from the Hyper Dictionary).[*]morality, [n] concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct.[/ul]Without some faith in something - a deity, an axiom, a tower of turtles - the world would seem to be just a large terrarium. Without faith that there is more, what does it matter if you live or die, kill or be killed?[/li]
Now I’m getting far afield and these points drift away from the OP. I’m just relating my unstudied opinions. I lurk and see these points raised and it makes me think. So, even atheists seem to have faith in some things beyond the provable - but I have no evidence for that statement, so I’m open to correction.
I’ll have faith in things until I can get some good satisfying facts instead. A good fact on which to build a world is much better than a unsubstantiated faith. I have faith in that.
What does it matter to whom?
I want to live because living is the only thing I know. Death is the end of everything.
I don’t want to be killed because being killed means I’m dead, and being dead is the end of everything.
I don’t want to kill others because I have empathy and imagination and can place myself in their shoes. I want to treat people well so that I can in turn demand to be treated well and also so that I’ll avoid the crushing guilt that my mother instilled in me, guilt that is activated, again, by my empathy and imagination.
Depends what you mean by a “non-practicing Christian”. I was baptised and confirmed into the C of E but I’m an atheist. Do I count in your reckoning?
As for the state religion, the last figures I read, Anglican attendance is only something like 2 million a week, out of a country of 60+ million. Also:
We’re pretty secular.
Humanism doesn’t demand faith, just empathy.
I prosecute trespassers.
Just sayin’.
Lib: I fail to see the explicit connection you are trying to make. Or perhaps I should say I fail to see the tacit connection and I would appreciate it if you’d make it explicit. I’d rather not launch into a discussion of godel’s incompleteness theorem, the primacy of logic or mathatmatics, etc… until I’m sure exactly what plane we’re debating on.
Luckily enough, I don’t have to.
Burden of proof and all that.
You cannot prove that reality was not created by the Magical Giant Invisible Panda.
This does not mean that the Panda Theory should be taught along side, say, special relativity.
There’s a reason we don’t base science on supersitition: because it doesn’t work.
When it comes down to real life or death decisions, which do you really want on your side?
Would you plant seeds, or pray for bread?
Yes, I understand the dichotomy.
I try to believe in a God every other thursday after lunch.
Sometimes even go about such things for a long while.
But it is in the ability to entertain an idea without accepting it that a critical mind truly shines.
Personally I’ve never called you an idiot.
Do I think that if you place blind faith in something with no proof that you’re both doing yourself a disservice as well as abandoning logic? Yes.
Many intelligent folk have believed in God.
Many intelligent folk also **believed ** in Zeus.
I leave it up to you to ponder what that means.
That’s easy. Simple proof by induction. My 1st-year logic students could do it. Honestly, Lib, try to keep up. 
On a more serious note, the axioms and “God exists” are two diffent types of statement. We cannot prove either with certainty, but there is a great more evidence against God, as He is commonly thought of, than there is against Peano’s work. There isn’t (and as far as I can tell, can’t be) a logical or experimental refutation of Peano’s axioms, and there similarly cannot be a confirmation.
God can be shown to not exist as commonly understood (Problem of evil, among others), but the proof (such as it is) is more easily seen in the experimental: either God exists, and sees fit to organise the universe in such a manner that he cannot be directly observed, measured, or studied in a laborotory setting, or He doesn’t.
Feh.
I have faith in Zeus.
Surely He would not make empty promises about eternal youth in the Beforlife!
Right? Right?!?
right?
(I wonder how much of theism comes out of this, this raw, primal, nameless terror we all feel when we look into the abyss, when we contemplate our own mortality)
I feel the loss of my theism not when I contemplate my own mortality, but when I contemplate the mortality of those I love. I want to feel that there’s something out there that cares how much I love my husband. The universe doesn’t give a damn.
I am confused, do you mean you lose your theism, or gain it?
Universe certainly doesn’t give a damn… are you stating that as a reason to believe in a supreme being or simply a somewhat (deservedly) bitter remark since losing your husband makes you lose theism?
Also, are you saying that the root of your theism isn’t personal mortality, but the mortality of your loved ones?
Just kinda confused… :smack:
And while I’m at it, the concept of ‘losing theism’ is… very intersting.
I do not grok in fullness.
Of course not. But I think there’s a difference between rejecting outlandish theories (seven day creation, flat Earth, geocentric universe) that have been proven wrong beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, and saying that the universe’s genesis might have had a supernatural element. You can’t prove how the universe was created. We’re not even sure yet that the Big Bang happened.
I just haven’t seen enough evidence from either camp to convince me of a deity’s existence or lack of an existence (and I do think burden of proof cuts both ways on this issue). That doesn’t mean I entertain every weird cult that comes along. I think empathy is far more important than “faith.” In all respects I’m a secular humanist. But I can’t quite rule out the existence of a deity, not yet anyway. I need more proof for that.
Sigh, the burden of being an agnostic.
Just a simple hijack, but I have to say “heh”. 
The first time I’ve run across this sort of ‘stranger’ reference…
I have lost it.
I feel that loss when certain things happen. There used to be a shred of comfort. Now there isn’t.