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Very level-headed approach, unlike many of those of the atheistic bent. You would almost think atheism is a religion unto itself. But that's a whole other phenomenon.

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ORIGINAL: Zonie63

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ORIGINAL: NoBimbosAllowed
Just because something doesn't exist on your street in your city in the experience of your culture does not mean it does not exist elsewhere.

Faith in the current science always being 'right' is just as much of a blind faith as any religist's. Case in point, the duhrwads who had the Iguanodon walking on all fours for what, over a century? BRILLIANT.

I somewhat agree, as scientists are human beings who are prone to error and lying just like any other human being. But I can also see that science is self-correcting through peer review. Religion doesn't really have that, and therein lies the difference.

I also happen to think that there's a difference between saying "X does not exist" versus "There is insufficient evidence to prove that X exists." I'm an agnostic, so I believe that the statement "God does not exist" is just as scientifically invalid as saying that "God exists."

As an agnostic, I'm content to live with a mystery. I don't have a problem with the answer "I don't know." But a lot of people seem unable to accept that, that there HAS to be a conclusive answer to every question or riddle that faces us in life.

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

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ORIGINAL: NoBimbosAllowed

That was an exaggeration no different to reports of bears over 13 feet tall in the Californian Rockies by pioneers and gold panners.

The point remains. BLACK SWANS, Dom. Black Swans. ESTABLISHED doctrine stating they dod not exist, based on the limitations of experience of people on the other side of the planet from the antipodes, and those people were STILL full of shit.

so arguing the finer points while avoiding the - pun intended - SPIRIT of the argument, Dom, is like ignoring the human weal in favour of...

debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

How...... CATHOLIC of you Dom Ken. I am impressed. *WEG*

This is a truly dumb complaint. No one had ever seen a black swan before outsiders got to Australia. This was not some big scientific principle. It is just an old Latin saying, translated "a rare bird in the lands, very much like a black swan."

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ORIGINAL: NoBimbosAllowed

There are groups in Jewish faith and conclaves in old Catholic faith where all members had the responisbility to argue, debate, revise, refine and attempt to whittle down things that needed 'to go' and this was done completely and utterly by dint of DEDICATED self-correction and even sending people on great treks at great risk to find evidence of tracts of belief, or to disprove tracts of belief.
<snip>

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

I've had religious people ask me, 'But *why* aren't you a Christian?' - and I've blinked and answered, 'Eh? Who knows? I'm not an astronaut, either'.

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ORIGINAL: Kirata

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

We can argue forever about the detail of various religious belief systems.

Religion is a matter of faith ie. belief in the absence of confirming evidence. If a person has 'faith' then all the logical arguments and all the evidence to the contrary matter not an iota. In the minds of believers, faith trumps empirical evidence and logic every time.

Given this, I find it odd that believers choose to justify their beliefs using empirical evidence and logic. If empirical evidence and logic are considered insufficient to invalidate or disprove faith-based beliefs, how can they be said to validate or 'prove' them?

I don't find it odd that someone who believes in something greater would welcome evidence suggestive of there possibly being something to that belief, but I do have a quibble with claims that a book (take your pick) constitutes empirical evidence.

K.

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ORIGINAL: NoBimbosAllowed

Uh, no, and I doubt you've actually BEEN here, instead of just taking what you've read/heard about the Black Swan thing secondhand (kind of like people complain that Christian stuff is second-hand and third-hand). Which would allow you the empirical data you'd need to make that statement, like when I speak of things in the USA, I can speak from empirical evidence and sensory experience from HAVING BEEN THERE AND LIVED THERE.

Have YOU, Dom Ken, ever set foot in Australia outside of Sydney or Melbourne for more than a week, yes or no?

because if you HAVE NOT, you lack all the empirical data you ... 'preach' about. You are acting on FAITH of something you heard or read from someone else and other sources.

JUST LIKE A FERVENT CHRISTIAN.

have you lived in Oz, outside of Melbourne or Sydney, for more than 2 weeks, YES OR NO, Dom Ken?

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ORIGINAL: TigressLily


For those who would question the peer review process, I raise two issues. First, another poster noted Atwill sidestepped this requirement before booking his upcoming symposium. Shades of The Da Vinci Code. It would appear there is a Dan Brown wannabe shopping around for a book and/or movie deal. I was once involved with an anthropologist (2 Ph.D.s) who had lived among the Yanomamo Indians in the Darien Jungle around Panama. He would have never dreamed of presenting his findings on shamanism and shamanistic healing practices without submitting his work beforehand for academic peer review.

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ORIGINAL: TigressLily


Good question.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

Given this, I find it odd that believers choose to justify their beliefs using empirical evidence and logic. If empirical evidence and logic are considered insufficient to invalidate or disprove faith-based beliefs, how can they be said to validate or 'prove' them?

Insofar as believers go, the objective is not to 'win' an argument or feed an atmosphere of contention. This defeats the whole purpose of reaching the other person on a more spiritual, less egocentric level. Many believers lose sight of this themselves and resort to proselytizing rather than providing information for rumination.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

If believers are going to claim that certain types of evidence and/or argument validate or confirm their beliefs (which they are perfectly entitled to do if they so choose) then it seems to me that they are obliged to accept the corollary - that the same types of evidence and argument may invalidate or contradict their beliefs.

They aren't entitled to cherry pick. If believers decline to accept this obligation, (which they are perfectly entitled to do if they so choose), then it follows that they must also decline any evidence- or logic-based arguments to validate or confirm their beliefs.

The choice is theirs, but they have to accept that, having made their choice, they face the same consequences as the rest of us do.

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ORIGINAL: TigressLily

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

The choice is theirs, but they have to accept that, having made their choice, they face the same consequences as the rest of us do.

You must associate with a dogmatic crowd. To a certain extent, one must be unwavering in their beliefs.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

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ORIGINAL: TigressLily
You must associate with a dogmatic crowd. :)

It is unclear to me whether this remark was directed at me personally or whether it was part of the general point you were making.

If you meant the former, I'm afraid that only time I discuss these matters is here on CM. Sorry to say it but, in rl, I find that in the rare encounters I have with believers, either the believers themselves or their message is so uninspiring I'm left distinctly unimpressed.

Re; the argument I was advancing. If you think it through, if evidence- and/or logic-based arguments are used in the cherry picking manner I described, the end result is that the evidence/argument itself is devalued to the point of uselessness.

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NBA: Faith in the current science always being 'right' is just as much of a blind faith as any religist's.

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The point is that it's like all the "professional" scientists stating for over 200 years that there is/was no such thing as a black swan.

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Just because something doesn't exist on your street in your city in the experience of your culture does not mean it does not exist elsewhere.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
It seems to me that in doing so, believers can create the impression that they are trying to persuade themselves as much as anybody else. Perhaps it is a method some people adopt to deal with and/or overcoming their own insecurities and doubts around their particular belief system. Personally I'm far more impressed by people such as dcnovice who openly admits to struggling with these questions.

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
It seems to me that in doing so, believers can create the impression that they are trying to persuade themselves as much as anybody else. Perhaps it is a method some people adopt to deal with and/or overcoming their own insecurities and doubts around their particular belief system. Personally I'm far more impressed by people such as dcnovice who openly admits to struggling with these questions.

I expect that's exactly what's going on. I think for a lot of people in a modern first world society the intuitive mind may be successfully utterly brain washed but the rational mind can't help but notice that things just don't add up. This comes with a pile of cognitive dissonance that can result in the whole lifelong doubt cycle that chatter was talking about in the last thread.

So there are of course a number of coping strategies people use.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

I've had religious people ask me, 'But *why* aren't you a Christian?' - and I've blinked and answered, 'Eh? Who knows? I'm not an astronaut, either'.

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Peon, people have actually asked you this in the UK? They must do things differently over there. Or maybe not. On the other hand, there are those who say they are Christians because their family of origin is Christian, drag themselves to a church service twice a year - on Easter and during Christmas - if that much, but can't follow the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.) the rest of the year long.

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ORIGINAL: Kirata
("Chicago Jesus" is a nickname for Obama)

K.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
What I wanted to convey was that certain people's agnosticism, and even atheism, isn't important to them. That's the case with my own. Zonie said that he's content for questions about the existence or non-existence of God to remain a mystery. I'm likewise but I'd say that for all but an infinitesimal part of the time such matters don't even exist as mysteries for me.

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I sometimes wonder, if there is a God, then perhaps the real "test" for us humans is in evaluating our ability to see through manipulative lies and other such bullshit coming from the religious. If one vehemently rejects religion and opposes it, then they pass the test, whereas those who follow a religion will fail and go directly to Hell. Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony, if atheists and agnostics were regarded by God as the "true believers" and ended up with a free ticket to Heaven?

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But when people ask "Why don't you believe in MY God?" then that's a different matter. Not only does it take a leap of faith to believe in an invisible deity, but it goes even beyond that when such a leap of faith involves all the other falderal associated with religion. I won't necessarily ask religious people to prove the existence of God, since that question has gotten a bit cliche and old hat. But I might ask them to prove that eating meat on Friday during Lent is a "sin." Or I might ask questions about the alleged spiritual properties of communion wafers or "holy water" - that sort of thing.