Fine, so you admit we cannot prove the spiritual. Do you have evidence of it, that is, evidence beyond your inherent sense of it? Your inherent sense clearly contradicts the Bible and many other people’s sense of God, since the Bible tells of God’s interaction with the universe, an interaction you think does not happen. How did you come to this conclusion? So far, it seems that if you object to someone calling your position irrational, you don’t have a leg to stand on. I for one certainly accept that people have irrational religious beliefs, I just accept that there are any rational ones.
Good. Then I trust that your morals and ethics have nothing to do with god belief, and that you certainly do not condemn other actions because of your god belief. (Condemning them on non-god based ethical principles is a totally different matter.) If so, how do you feel about other god-believers who do try to influence others’ actions?
-And what is your reasoning for that? You “feel” it, you “sense” that it’s true?
If there’s more to one’s consciousness, one’s “self”, than mere chemistry, then why do certain chemicals alter that consciousness? LSD, THC and morphine all have powerful mood-altering/mind-altering capabilities; if all or part of the consciousness were somewhere besides the physical brain, you would be unaffected or less affected by such drugs.
We know that certain parts of the brain are responsible for certain actions, abilities or emotions. We know that people who have suffered injuries to the brain are often altered in mood, personality, intelligence. If the mind resided somewhere outside the physical, these injuries would be irrelevant.
Or will you now state that injuries to the physical are somehow “reflected” in the spirit- physical insult somehow transmitted to the non-corporeal/intangible?
-So tell me where I ever gave the indication I felt my world was dry, sterile and without beauty?
You first stated that athiests must be sad little creatures, cut off from some majesty of demons, magic and mysticism, yet take umbrage when I reply in kind.
Kettle, thy name is Black.
-Is it? So since I understand what the process is, it no longer holds any meaning for me?
I cannot enjoy Terminator 3 since I happen to know Arnold is not in fact a Cyborg, that the lady’s skin is not a mimnetic polyalloy from the future?
I cannot enjoy The Green Mile since I know a seven-foot black man can’t draw evil humors from a person by magic?
I know how bronze is cast in the lost-wax method so therefore Rodin’s Thinker is merely a lump of copper/tin alloy?
Why do you assume this? Why do you assume that Randi is merely making the motions when he says he finds pleasure in children’s faces and puppy dogs for what they are, and not as supposed gifts from some supposed God?
I expected no less a statement.
Let me ask you this, then. If God did, indeed, create the universe, then what purpose is there to the other hundred billion suns in this galaxy alone? Why are there a trillion other galaxies, each with billions unto billions of suns, in a volume of space so vast it can only be expressed mathematically?
God made our planet, made us, loves us, we are the center of his attention? What are the other suns and planets for? Why did he make one of the moons of Mars so close it’s going to crash to the surface of the planet in a mere few million years? What is the reasoning behind Io, Ganymede and Callisto?
The existence of these things can be easily explained by astrophysics and a few theories as to the advent of the universe. Assuming some manner of intelligent design opens an immense can of worms that only lead to more and deeper self-delusion.
We’re told God loves us, he sent his human son to die for us. Yet astronomy tells us we are literally one insigificant piece of grit about midway out in a glob of tens of billions of other bits of grit, in a universe stuffed to the gills with umpteen quadrillion other bits of grit.
What, pray tell, makes us so special?
The average theist I have conversed with often refuses to contemplate that. The spaces so vast, the numbers so incomprehensible, they- like you- simply refuse to think about it. It’s easier for them to ignore that as an irrelevancy, and get back to thinking some intangible magic genie loves them personally.
-Many of them operate (as already noted in this threads earlier hijack) under a deliberately and wilfully limited scope of information. Most start from the premise- God exists- and work backwards in order to prove that premise.
I further note that with all this dilligent and- I’m sure- unbiased contemplation, we still have exactly zero proof for the existence of God or any of the miracles or creations associated with him.
You know he exists because you can feel him. Super. The Heaven’s Gate people, who, it need not be said, had ultimate faith in their feelings, felt equally strongly- or more so- that their salvation lay within a starship trailing a comet.
Needless to say, they were not correct. Why do you feel you are correct?
-You and I. What you call feelings and spirit, I call psychology and the mind. They are one and the same, they are synonyms. You might feel they are different, that you feel part of the mind or spirit is non-corporeal, is somewhere outside the body, but you admit no proof. It’s just a feeling.
I feel you are wrong. Why is my feeling any less legitimate than yours?
-So who is wrong? The Christians? The Druids? The Hindu? The Muslims? The Shintoists? Buddhists? Mormons? Wiccans? Protestants? Jews?
Which is right? Christianity? Islam? Judaism? Polytheism? Animism?
All of them claim to be “right”, very few- select individuals- ever admit to maybe being wrong. All those claiming to be “right” claim the others- all of them- are wrong. Most are apologists- “Whoa, my God’s gonna condemn 4.1 billion people to burn in hell! That can’t be right, can it? Oh, wait, I’ll assume God will give them a chance- they don’t believe in him, pray to him, make the right sacrifices, visit the right temples, say the right words or observe the right holy days, but he sees they’re trying and will give 'em a pass. 'Cept those damn Catholics. Those guys he’s gonna slow-roast.”
Is it not possible, even probable, that religion as a whole, it’s very concept, is wrong?
-And yet you still believe, but take offense when someone says you’re being wilfully ignorant of reality.
It is those like you that Randi writes about, and with whom he’s been dealing, confronting and being confronted by, for over thirty years.
Do you understand yet, why he might strike some as a bit of a curmudgeon?
Two men are wandering about a huge abandoned mansion when they come upon a heavy iron door, locked from the other side and, to all of their efforts, unopenable.
Joe Skeptic: “I wonder what is in the room beyond?”
Joe Mystic: “Why do you think there is a room behind the door?”
Joe Skeptic: “Well…we have explored everywhere else in this place and there have always been rooms beyond the doors we have opened, except when the door is an exit to the outside of teh manor.Furthermore, according to the floorplan I have mapped out, the wall that this door is set into is 10’ X 15’ and the walls which extend at 90 degree angles from either end of this wall are of equal dimensions…extending 15’ in that direction until they meet another wall of 10’ X 15’.This indicates another room to me but I guess it could be a shaft or just a solid block of wall…”
Joe Mystic: “-OR a dimensional gateway to Avalon!”
Joe Skeptic: “Hehe…doubtful.But anyway this room or whatev-…”
Joe Mystic: “Why is it ‘doubtful’?I know in my heart that this is indeed a spiritual portal to a land of magic and wonder!You cannot prove otherwise!”
Joe Skeptic: “Er, no…I can’t prove a negative and am not interested in trying.What I am saying is that we have no reason to think there is such a mystical gateway to some mystical place which we also have no reason to assume exists.This mansion has certain consistent traits which makes it explorable in the first place.If the nature of this place were such that we truly did not know whether opening a door would reveal a room or would turn us into amorphous blobs or jetison us into the confines of a Dali painting, then we could not learn anything at all about this mansion!”
Joe Mystic: “What a cold and sterile way of looking at the mansion!I feel sorry for you that you do not want to visit other places like Avalon.If you like looking at the same old boring rooms…”
Joe Skeptic: “What does that have to do with what is behind a door???Why should truth be concerned with what you or I wish it to be?
Listen, as things stand the inference that a dimensional gateway to Avalon lies behind this door is unwarranted.You could have stated that Angelina Jolie was naked and waiting for the two of us on the other side of that door and the claim would have been just as exciting(to me anyway) and the probability of it being true would have been MUCH greater than your Avalon thing!”
Joe Mystic: “Well, of course the inference will seem unwarranted because Avalon cannot be detected or known by human reasoning and sensory observation.It is a supernatural place!”
Joe Skeptic: “Then how do you know it exists?How is the idea any different than the snozzwoggler?”
Sorry for the delay in my response. Didn’t look at the board all weekend…
Perhaps. I understand that the word “atheist” has some bad connotations, but I can’t help but think that folks who label themselves as “brights” are saying “We is Atheists but we is the smart kind!” In attempting to differentiate themselves from the masses, the “brights” fall into the same self superiority trap that fundamental dogmists fall into. “If you don’t think like us, you are below us.”
My mind, quite unfairly I admit, amuses itself by switching the word “bright” for “dim” whenever I see someone use it to describe themselves.
What I meant is that I’m not particularly interested in whether some random passage in the Bible is literally true, a use of allegory, or utter fiction. I think it is rather easy to find flaws in religion so the excercise doesn’t interest me that much. I am interested in whether or not there is a God, not whether or not the various religions of the world have gotten their stories right. Randi’s essay was really an outburst about religion not about the existance of a Supreme Being.
I myself tend toward a belief in deism. I believe that a higher power put forth the universe in motion. Whether that force is a God as we can conceptualize, an expression of quantum physics, or something that we cannot ever comprehend I don’t know.
** But we consider Set X to be the group of all things that are A and interact with A. If A interacts with B, then by definition B belongs to Set X.
You’re blind to the contradiction! It’s as if you said, “Well, we’re taking for granted that an immovable object and an irresistable force can meet, so what happens when they do?” Your initial assumptions are incompatible.
** Another part is recognizing when you are wrong and admitting it. Yet another is recognizing when you’re right and being willing to admit that.
No, no serious-minded person believes that positions are justified by faith.
I thought this board was for all views, Wouldn’t be that you believe religion folks have no right to their views. That’s why we have a constitution to protect the rights of all people. Randi wants to abolish religion because he doesn’t understand, or maybe he understands too well what it represents and doesn’t want to accept personal responsibility for his actions toward others.
We were talking about empirical measurements of things to prove their existense, you got away from that very quickly, since it made no sense when applied to things like “mind.”
Now, whether you are the other skeptics like it or not, your consciousness will continue after the death of your body. That much we have proved by controlled scientific studies. Read the current Readers Digest aug 2003, it is one the front page.
I know you don’t believe it, you are a skeptic and they don’t believe anything that’s really important to life. However, you are entitled to think what you want.
I have never heard of religious people saying we should do away with scientists and ban the practice of science. Kinda shows who the bigots really are, doesn’t it.
If you don’t believe in God, or higher intelligence than your own, fine, I wish you much happiness and go your own way. But don’t try to tell me what to believe, ok.
What part of “I cannot prove the spiritual” don’t you understand? If I had evidence beyond my inherent sense of it, I could prove it, couldn’t I? **
I think much of the Bible is allegorical. But I did not say God never interacts with the universe, only that He rarely chooses to do so; indeed, I specifically noted that I think He kicked off this whole party, lighting the fuse for the Big Bang. **
Depends on what you mean by “rational.” All reasoning depends on first principles. If you take as a first principle that only the materially measurable is real, then yes, religion is irrational. If, on the other hand, you take as a first principle that the universe is not limited to the materially measurable, it is not. That dichotomy is essentially the product of competing worldviews, and not of some defect in the cognitive processes of one party.
Complete non-sequitur. In what way does religion force one to accept personal responsibility for one’s actions toward others? Is it not true that historically religion has been much more used to avoid such responsibility?
Note to new readers: This oft-repeated claim, a favourite of lekatt, has been debunked many, many, many, many times. If no-one has the stamina to go through the routine debunking again, that doesn’t mean lekatt is right, and he isn’t. Search the forums.
For starters, science and religion are not equivalent. They’re not opposite sides of the same coin. They’re not like football and tennis, or like the US and Iraq. They’re completely different animals, which makes this statement of yours meaningless.
Furthermore, if Randi stated anywhere that he wishes to ban religion, I missed it. I’m sure he looks forward to a time when no irrational notions, be they religious or otherwise, affect human life. So do I. But I, and I imagine Randi agrees, don’t think banning religion outright would be a good thing.
So we’ve gone from debating religion to “leave me alone with my beliefs”. No-one is forcing you to read these boards; no-one is forcing you to post to them. If you do read, however, you risk reading stuff you disagree with, and if you do post, you risk being responded to in disagreement and having your views scrutinized.
My rule is to never reply to Lekatt, as no cogent discussion can ever come of it.
I am about to violate my rule, and I will live to regret it.
It sure is. You’re still here.
No, he doesn’t.
No, it doesn’t. You are the one making the fantastic claim. Prove it. And links to your fantasy, super-“love” web site are not proof to anybody except you.
You have been asked time & again for cites to such, and you have supplied none. I have considerable confidence you will supply none here. Prove me wrong for once in your life, or stop making the fantasic claims.
No good. While the Reader’s Digest is my usual source of all scientific inquiry, :rolleyes: I prefer the front page story in National Enquirer; it has more pictures.
Sure, other than medical knowledge, physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, engineering and the arts, I believe nothing. And none of those are important to life.
And no one here is saying we should do away with religion, either, just subject it to the same scrutiny given to the sciences that have brought us out of the stone age and made it possible for you to so easily carry on an argument with others around the globe.
No one here is. You wouldn’t be trying to tell US what to believe, would you?
** The issue is not whether you can prove it. With no evidence, what leads you to that conclusion in the first place?
You’re again missing the point. In what way can something that has no effect on the material world at all be said to be real? We define what is material by interaction. Therefore, if God interacts with the material world, He is material. If He doesn’t, there’s no way in which he can be said to exist, since there are no consequences of His non-existence that differ from the consequences of His existence.
It’s not a matter of competing worldviews. It’s a matter of using terminology and applying logic.
Because saying there is more to consciousness than the physical is not the same thing as saying there is no physical component to consciousness. **
I never said you felt this way. I commented that I thought your worldview was dry and sterile. **
“Replying in kind” does not mean misrepresenting what I actually said. I said I thought reducing love, etc, to chemical processes was a dry and sterile way of looking at the world. You responded by claiming I had said that “only some invisible magic entity can provide beauty or majesty.” Clearly, that is quite different from what I actually said. Pointing out that misrepresentation is perfectly legitimate.
Also FTR, I never called atheists “sad little creatures” or anything like it. I do think their worldview misses much of the forest for the trees, and I do think the reduction of beauty, etc, to biological phenomena is regrettable, but I never engaged in anything like the sort of ad hominem you’re accusing me of. **
No, but it does make those things less rich. Romeo and Juliet’s deaths become less poetic when attributed to chemical reactions rather than star-crossed, doomed love. Gee, if only the Montagues and Capulets had given their kids the right pyschotropic medications, all might be well in fair Verona. **
I don’t think he’s going through the motions. I just think he’s wrong about the source of joy for those things. Even James Randi has a soul. **
Maybe God just likes looking at the planets. Maybe He wants us to aspire to travel there. Maybe He wants us consider our own smallness in the grand scheme of things. Or maybe there’s life out there – a belief in God does not demand that the universe be centered on homo sapiens.
**
According to South Park, it’s the Mormons. Beyond that, I have no idea; I am not trying to advocate any particular faith here. We’re talking about the broad concept of the existence of a deity; the exact character of that deity is a mere detail compared to that discussion.
Love is a chemical reaction. It’s not an either-or situation. This fact doesn’t lessen my appreciation of Romeo and Juliet one tiny little bit, and I don’t see why it would.
Dewey Cheatem Undhow, you’ve stated that you believe in a deity. Why do you do that?
Asked and answered. See my reply to you at 07-28-2003 12:57 AM EST**
[/quote]
You’re again missing the point. In what way can something that has no effect on the material world at all be said to be real? We define what is material by interaction. Therefore, if God interacts with the material world, He is material. If He doesn’t, there’s no way in which he can be said to exist, since there are no consequences of His non-existence that differ from the consequences of His existence.**
[/quote]
Look, I get your friggin’ point. I just disagree with it. I think the real encompasses more than the physical world. No, I can’t prove that. Yes, that is based on my own subjective sense of things. No, that does not mean I do not understand what you are saying. **
Of course it’s a matter of competing worldviews. You don’t believe in anything that can’t be measured materially. I think there’s more to the story.
It’s a saying, in this case meant to convey that it is sad to reduce certain things to mere biology. It isn’t targeted at any particular person.**
Waxing poetic about eternal, undying love loses some of its punch if the right psychotropic medications can undo that love. **
A lot of reasons, some personal, some based on spiritual experiences observed in others, some just based on my general sense of things.
There’s a classic Bloom County cartoon that encapsulates this nicely. Oliver Wendall Jones, athiest, hacker, child scientist extraordinaire, is outside at night, watching the stars. After a few panels of doing so silently, he suddenly erupts: “The universe is just a little too darn orderly to be a big accident!”
I point to that cartoon not because of the argument that an orderly universe = God, though that is part of my worldview, but rather because it captures what I mean nicely (it really loses its punch without the visuals): the sharp, sudden realization that empiricism isn’t everything. Gut reactions count for something in this world, and while it would be a mistake to call them provable, neither are they invalid.
That proves that you don’t understand the point, because it’s not possible to disagree with it and be sane. This is not a value judgment on my part. This is a consequence of logic.
If I explained why an immovable object and an irresistable force could not meet, and you stated that you understood my point but disagreed with it, you would be wrong. You would also be incredibly, unimaginably, mind-numbingly stupid.
There may be plenty of things that we can’t interact with. But there is no way in which we can say those things “exist”. There will never be any consequences of these hypothetical non-material things that affect us or anything in our universe. We can never find any evidence, direct or indirect, circumstantial or conclusive, of these things. They can’t be considered to be real.
I know what it means. You think it’s “sad” to reduce certain things to mere biology. Sad to whom? To you? Are you saddened by it? Why?
I disagree violently. The intensity of the emotions involved lose none of their significance to the experiencer.
Would you use this “general sense of things” to do anything else? Would you design a combustion engine based on this sense? Would you invent a new medicine based on this sense? If not, why would you use it as a basis for your worldview?
I really think you’re fetishizing one word unnecessarily.
Why? As I’ve noted, I think the world is a little more sterile if we reduce things like love to mere biology. I prefer not to lose that essential richness of the human experience. **
Oh, I think they do, for the same reason that the Wizard of Oz is a lot less scary once the curtain is pulled back. **