Hey jab1, remember the one Golden Law of the universe? Yes, even atheists follow it. It’s called DON’T BE A JERK. How are your insults of other religions going to make people who believe in Wicca to say “oh my! The cool and calculating jab1 has showed me that my religion is a farce! I need to forsake my ethics and codes to please him!”
You are a digrace to the rest of us atheists.
I’ll ignore the snide comment, and address your point. My point was that you feel safe using these things because that you know that someone, someplace understands the intricacies of them. Therefore, even though you don’t posses that knowledge yourself, you admit that the knowledge does exitst somewhere. The problem with anything that might be considered “magic” is that you (generic you here)don’t know anyone that could sit down and actually explain any of it to you. So since you can’t point to a person and say “He know’s how it works”, then you don’t believe it’s real. A valid standpoint.
Same statement as above. You just don’t choose to call this viewpoint “faith”
Really? So can you produce some of the inner calm that comes from meditation without the mumbo-jumbo? While I’m sure that there are theories explaining the sense of calm that people get from performing meditation, I’m not aware of any way of achieving it without actually going through it. I could be wrong though. Same with the feeling of calm and peace that some people get from doing yoga. I don’t think you can achieve that without utilizing the method that they do.
Not if science won’t admit that a question exists. This get’s back to the arrogance that Lib (?) was talking about. I believe that because people shy away from thinking or opening their minds to something that may be deemed “fringe” they loose the opportunity to really consider things from a differnt point. If you came across a race of blind people, and tried to explain colors to them, they would lack even the facilities to understand what you were talking about. Our world set has become so “practical” that we cannot even embrace the idea that there may be a whole differnt aspect to the universe that we don’t understand.
Fine, that’s your value based upon your experience. Others have had different experiences in their lives that lead them to believe. I personally have had things happen to me that lead me to believe.
You are correct. In that nothing can be either created or destroyed by us. We simply use our technology to modify what is found in nature. We daily eat foods that would not exist were it not for our intervention. As our knowledge expands, what today may seem “magical” may tomorrow be mundane. That’s really the problem with how we view “magic” you assume that technology, no matter how advanced isn’t “magic”. And while you joke about translating from sheep. Are you saying that animals have no thought? No awarness? At all? Just because we are so far above them, and they are so far below us, that they can’t even concieve of something like us doesn’t mean that we don’t exist, does it?
Let me ask you a few questions
Do you believe that there is life someplace else in the Universe?
If so, do you believe that we as humans are necessarily the oldest and most advance technically?
Do you think it’s possible for technology to be beyond comprehension if it’s advance enough?
Do you think that social evolution and technological evolution go hand and hand?
Do you think that as we become more socially evolved, that we may be more considerate to other forms of life?
I don’t know…I’m tired, and not thinking as clearly as I want. My point is that while I don’t believe in “magic” I do believe in something greater than myself. I hope that there is more to the universe than just us, because frankly, I’m not all that impressed by us all the time. If I’m not open to even the possibility of that, well then what do you have? While pragmatism has it’s place, if you don’t dare to dream, how can you achieve?
You know, we could skip all the vague philosophical questions designed to steer us away from the main topic, if you would just show us proof that magic exists. If I want to hear inquiries answered with vague philosophical questions I can go to my old psychiatrist buddy, Oscar Goldman(yes, that’s his real name, and no, he doesn’t know anyone by the name of Steve Austin :)).
And how can I possibly prove it? If I describe occurances that have happend to me, which I beleive are “divine” in nature, I’m sure that you’ll shrug them off to “coincidence” or “luck”. When you can **prove ** to me the mathmatical nature of those two items, how they’ll react under observation ** every single time **, and they they function, I’ll be happy to give up my belief in a God.
red_dragon60, Let’s just drop the nasty, back and forth comments. Jab1 apologized and I’m happy enough with that. Any more commentary about anyone else’s character here just reminds of of the whole sorrowful mess, which I’d just as soon put behind us.
How about someone opening up a GD thread on magic and its efficacy? As Alphagene put it, there’s been LOTS of interesting commentary about it.
Atrael:
It sems that you,are asking science to evaluate claims that are outside of its territory. Assertions that cannot be tested like the existence of God, the efficacy of meditation, and so on lie outside science’s domains. If you think meditation and yoga make you happier, good for you. However, if you make claims that can be tested, like saying you can throw fireballs with your mind, don’t be upset that a skeptic will ask you to step up and demonstrate.
In addition, I think that you misunderstand the nature of scientific inquiry. You said,
That is so completely antithetical to the nature of science. The sciences are continually investigating aspects of the universe that we don’t understand. In today’s Washington Post, there’s an article on the nature of planet formationthat leads astronomers to think planets may be rarer than they first thought. There’s an article on a newly discovered city in Peru as old as ancient Egypt that
sheds new light on the daily life of early civilization in the Americas.
I submit that believers in the paranormal are the truly close-minded folks. When was the last time you ever heard of an astrologer testing his theories and making new discoveries that could be independently verified in labs? When was the last time that psychics disproved a previously-held theory of telekinesis through research? Believers in the supernatural reject testing, research, and genuine inquiry in favor of statements backed up by no evidence.
Science, to quote James Randi,
Can the advocates of the paranormal say the same? I submit that it is they who “…shy away from thinking or opening their minds to something…”
The only honest answer is to say, “I don’t know.” Personally, I hope so; I’d hate to think that we’re all alone in the night. But my wishes and hopes don’t matter; what matters is evidence, and at the moment we don’t know enough to give a meaningful answer to the question.
Again, we don’t know.
Every science fiction fan can quote Arthur C. Clarke’s famous dictum, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
These questions need to be answered by philosophers, not scientists.
Read my sig, and think about it.
oops, here it is.
I’d hate to just single out this one question from five pages of intense discussion, but the question struck me.
This is an interestingly odd question. I’d have to assume that you would mean technology that we didn’t have a hand at producing, because I don’t think it is possible to create something without basic understanding of the mechanics. Even if part of the discovery was a happy accident. But if the technology was created by someone or something, it would mean (I assume) that it wasn’t beyond someone’s comprehension. I’m also assuming you mean technology and not ‘natural’ processes like Black Holes. But even with the natural processes, I don’t think anything is beyond comprehension.
I probably shouldn’t have butted in to this, since things like this require a lengthing regiment of thinking and I don’t have the time or patience, but I’m a freelance moron.
As for the other questions, I don’t have enough info to way one way of another.
Example, possibility for intellegent life elsewhere, I’ve seen it argued for and against, and it’s been a while since I was rigourously following the planetary sciences.
CZARCASM –
Well, one of us is, but I don’t think it’s me.
Correct. But average claims require average proof. In short, every claim requires proof, not just the extraordinary ones. And any claim that is amenable to proof must be proven by the party seeking to prove it, who cannot shift the burden to the opposition on the grounds that the opposite side is more difficult to prove. If you assert (as a fact and not a belief) that God does not exist, then you must prove that. If I assert (as a fact and not a belief) that God exists, then I must prove that. Which, of course, I can’t – which is why I don’t claim I can. Which is also why I do not assert that you are deluded/stupid/full of shit/whatever for believing that He doesn’t.
Again, that is irrelevant; the burden is one the person making the claim first, or making the claim, period. You cannot say “I assert that God does not exist! Now, since it is more likely (IMO) that He doesn’t than that He does, you must prove that He does.”
In this thread, only one claim has been made – JAB’s claim that Wiccans are deluded idiots by believing in magic and then, when he really got worked up, that all people of faith are “feeble-minded” believers in “mumbo-jumbo.” (Well, one poster also made the claim that he could perform actual magic, and I joined the chorus asking him to prove that. But he has not returned to defend the point, and no one has taken it up for him.)
All people who make affirmative statements, implicitly provable as something other than a matter of opinion, should be willing to pony up and prove them. There is no “your statement is more ridiculous than mine, so the burden of proof is on you.” Especially when, as here, there were not two conflicting affirmative statements about religion generally – i.e., religion is a crock; religion is a miracle cure. Only one of those broad statements was made in this thread, both by implication and flat-out: religion is a crock. It is therefore the burden of the person making the statement to prove it. Which, of course, he can’t, because – once again, with feeling – religion is not amenable to scientific proof, being at bottom a matter of personal belief (faith) in something that cannot be proven or disproven.
Is that clearer?
Okay, sorry. I didn’t have time to read 5 pages, so I guess I jumped the gun. Need to follow the golden rule too!
Sorry again, continue regularly scheduled debate.
Geez, folks. It’s quite simple. Just get Hastur to shoot fireballs (or money) out of his arse on command*, and all questions will be answered.
*The command would be “Hastur! Shoot fireballs or money out of your arse!”
Jodi,
I’ll try to be more precise. 
It’s incredibly difficult to prove a negative statement like ‘there is no Loch Ness monster’.
It’s a big lake - you’d probably have to drain it to ** prove ** the statement.
However, a negative like ‘zinc does not help the common cold’ can easily be tested (the usual double-blind clinical trials).
If someone says, contrary to current scientific theory, ‘I can levitate, using psychic powers’, then I would like some proof.
I don’t think much of the psychic who says ‘prove I can’t levitate!’.
I get suspicious of ‘I can levitate, but only if there are no sceptics in the room.’
Next, I could quibble with your quibble. When Fleming left stuff in a petrie dish, he didn’t know that he was searching for penicillin. (But OK, you’re right - generally hypothesis precedes experimentation 
).
Finally you said ‘the burden is one the person making the claim first, or making the claim, period.’
Well surely someone said ‘God exists’ first. Doesn’t it seem strange to deny the existence of something that no-one has claimed to exist?
No scientist worth his salt will say “There is no God, and I’ll prove it.”
It is impossible to prove that something does not exist, because those who believe it does will always just say “you just haven’t found the proof yet.” Ample evidence of that in this thread (“who knows what science will find in 25 years”). All you can do is show that there is no currently known evidence that something exists, and that the rules as currently understood don’t indicate that such a thing would exist.
Conversely, it can be very difficult to prove that something does exist. Frequently all you can do is provide repeated evidence, through observation and experiment, that something does, indeed appear to exist. This can be further strengthened by development of theories, hypothoses, and guess-work, that seem to not only predict the existence of said thing, but also to predicts the properties and behaviors of such a thing
This is what the scientific method will tell us. Now, scientists are human and humans are prone to hyperbole and many will tend to overstate things as certain.
An person may say “after 10,000 years of humans searching for positive proof of unicorns, none has been found. This means there is no god.” That is not entirely accurate. It is an overstatement of a lack of evidence. However, I think we can all agree that there probably aren’t unicorns running around some spare corner of Asia.
Conversely, abundant evidence may be overstated as well. I may say, “I’ve seen my front door thousands of times. Every interaction I’ve had with my front door meets my expectations as to what a door is and how it will behave. That thing attached to the threshhold at the front of my house IS a door.” There is a possibility, however, that the door is really a hologram and a thin, 3’x7’ alien is masked by it and replicates the functions of your neighbors actual door.
Science does not prove or disprove anything with certainty.
If you will accept that there appears to be concrete evidence for the existence of a god or spiritual energy, but that you, in your heart, feel such things must exist and you’ll leave it to future scientists to prove it, if they can then I have know problem with that.
If you feel that there IS concrete evidence for the existence of a god or spiritual energy then I am going to expect evidence of the claim.
I do not feel that me requesting that evidence is making a positive thesis that such a thing does not exist; I make no such claim. I claim only that such a thing would be contrary to all existing evidence and theory and as evidence of this “claim” I direct you to all the existing evidence and theory.
And yes, saying something like “God answered my prayers and allowed me to get pregant” is a positive claim of concrete evidence of the existence of god. You can not prove it one way or the other with that one woman but you can run tests to see if praying for pregnancy leads to a higher rate of pregnancy. Again, no absolutes, but a claim was made, and a claim was tested.
Shit. All that typing and I forget a very important negative.
“If you will accept that there appears to be concrete evidence for the existence of a god or spiritual energy, but that you, in your heart, feel such things must exist and you’ll leave it to future scientists to prove it, if they can then I have know problem with that.”
should read
"If you will accept that there appears to be no concrete evidence for the existence of a god or spiritual energy, but that you, in your heart, feel such things must exist and you’ll leave it to future scientists to prove it, if they can then I have know problem with that.
This is really irrelevant, because surely the first people had proof that god existed if they were Adam and Eve:)
Maybe because that’s not what the word “faith” means. People are ruining a perfectly nice Pit Thread with semantics. It’s stupid. That’s not faith. Period.
Hey jab1, you say that you don’t believe in curses, well, explain scientifically why the Boston Red Sox haven’t won the World Series since they traded away Babe Ruth, despite he fact they had more than their share of the best hitters and pitchers in baseball history, while during that time the Yankees managed to win 25? Also, explain the bottom of the tenth of the 6th game of the 1986 World Series between the Red Sox and the Mets? If that wasn’t magic, then I don’t know what it was.
Utterly ridiculous… everyone knows that all of those unusual instances were caused by interference from gremlins.
Now, I know that American Motors had a lot of faults, but I don’t think you can blame them for that!
Hey! Don’t you be dissing my Gremchild!
(mmmmm…white Gremlin with a red racing stripe…)