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Gailbraithe wrote:That way one can believe that the comic book claims that no one knows Spider-man's identity, yet almost everyone clearly knows that Peter Parker is Spider-man, so clearly Peter Parker cannot be Spider-man's secret ID, and be not at all bothered by the torturous logic of that argument.
Why is that torturous logic? If you're presuming that Spider-man is real, and that at least some of the comics represent an account of his life and deeds, then it can very easily follow that Peter Parker is nothing more than a false name conjured up by the author to protect the identity of the real Spider-Man. Now, that doesn't actually mean that there is a real Spider-man, or even that Peter Parker cannot be Spider-man's real name (perhaps he hides in plain sight), but it does mean that the way in which one regards source material is critical to determining what that source material means. Given the premise that the Spider-man comics are not exact representations of the life and deeds of Spider-man, the argument is perfectly reasonable.
Similarly, if one regards the Bible as a human interpretation of the Word, then they will regard it differently than someone who sees it as a direct representation of the Word. People in the former camp are allowed to pick and choose, because its really up to them to determine what they consider to be valid. People in the latter camp do not have that option, unless they believe that God can err, or something akin to the idea that the Bible was inerrant when created, but has now been mutilated by the hand of man.
As with any conventionally unobservable phenomenon, the ultimate barometer with respect to believability is a combination of utility. If someone finds something useful, then they are almost always going to be willing to put more effort into supporting their position. Unfortunately, many people make the mistake of presuming that the proofs they have concocted are predicated on premises which allow their deductions to be applied to others; confusing belief in something with evidence of that thing.
Gailbraithe wrote:
You totally get to pick and choose what is true. That's the great thing about religion.
You get to pick and choose what you believe is true. Just like everything else in the wrold. The difference is in regard to what you accept as evidence in the course of supporting that claim to truth.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
AbaddonFidelis wrote:Gailbraithe
I'm tempted to respond to your ideas from a theist perspective..... your carefully reasoned and insightful views on politics lead me to believe such a conversation would be deeply profitable for all involved......
Nah, I'll just annoy you, because I'm constitutionally incapable of taking a theist perspective seriously, and I'll piss you off by mocking the whole enterprise by referencing otherkin, the flying spaghetti monster, Eris and the aneristic principle, and, of course, the ever-present, invisible, intangible unicorns that are the basis of my faith.
Theists can't do the one thing that would make me take the proposition of theism seriously -- provide a definition of god that is relevant to living and empirically testable -- and consequently I don't take theist perspectives seriously.
As I would no doubt annoy you by pointing to the undoubted existence of many things for which we have no empirical proof or firm definition.... no doubt my utter contempt for atheism as a presumptuous and psychologically untenable system of thought (your obvious emotional stability excepted of course) would enrage you and provoke all kinds of lengthy and non-sensical replies, as would my insistence that rationality is not the only or even the best means of arriving at true (read: adaptive) conclusions.
Gailbraithe wrote:That way one can believe that the comic book claims that no one knows Spider-man's identity, yet almost everyone clearly knows that Peter Parker is Spider-man, so clearly Peter Parker cannot be Spider-man's secret ID, and be not at all bothered by the torturous logic of that argument.
Why is that torturous logic?
Because the everyone referred to in the statement actually refers to two separate groups. In the first instance it refers to the general public in the comic book and in the second instance it refers to the general public in real life. Surprised you missed that.
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AbaddonFidelis wrote:As I would no doubt annoy you by pointing to the undoubted existence of many things for which we have no empirical proof or firm definition....
Such as?
no doubt my utter contempt for atheism as a presumptuous and psychologically untenable system of thought (your obvious emotional stability excepted of course) would enrage you and provoke all kinds of lengthy and non-sensical replies, as would my insistence that rationality is not the only or even the best means of arriving at true (read: adaptive) conclusions.
Atheism isn't a system of thought. I don't care if you're bigoted against atheists. I take solace in the fact that any argument boils down to you engaging in special pleading as to why you should be exempted from ever having to prove that your case has a single leg to stand on. I mean seriously, oh noes, the fantasist thinks I've got an untenable system of thought. Whatever shall I do?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2010/09/29 04:06:55
It's worth pointing out from reading the article that the questions asked in their poll appear much harder than the ones in the little quiz on the site.
In other news, the hostility towards atheists in this thread is kind of sad. I'm normally kind of bemused by atheists coming out and declaring their atheism, and complaining about how it makes them ostracized, because as an atheist I've never experienced anything of the sort. Typically when I've seen some antagonism there's been plenty given by the atheists, but this thread is demonstrating a base level of hostility that exists towards atheists, without one even coming in to provoke it. Well, there was hostility before anyone came to provoke anything.
mattyrm wrote:Despite the fact there are some very intelligent religious zealots on dakka, there have been numerous studies done on this topic and it is universally accepted that the higher your level of education the less likely you are to be religious.
It generally depends on the faith. The dating site OKCupid does some really interesting data mining of their profile users* and a recent one looked at the language used in their searches, and looked at how that language was affected by gender and ethnicity. They measured writing proficiency and compared it with faith, while atheism came in top and protestantism came in bottom, it's interesting to note that buddhism and judaism scored almost exactly the same as atheism, and both scored higher than agnosticism.
The other point is that the difference overall is pretty marginal, one school grade from top to bottom.
*Alright, you have to accept the huge selection bias in the population, but it's interesting anyway.
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AbaddonFidelis wrote:I've read the koran cover to cover. god that was a mistake. what a boring book. yeah the bible has its good parts but alot of it is of little more than historical interest...
The Koran is superior in that it's much, much shorter.
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AbaddonFidelis wrote:As I would no doubt annoy you by pointing to the undoubted existence of many things for which we have no empirical proof or firm definition.... no doubt my utter contempt for atheism as a presumptuous and psychologically untenable system of thought (your obvious emotional stability excepted of course) would enrage you and provoke all kinds of lengthy and non-sensical replies, as would my insistence that rationality is not the only or even the best means of arriving at true (read: adaptive) conclusions.
Happily though we won't be going there
You're assuming that atheism has to be dependant on the atheist assuming there's is a more rational POV. I do not believe in God, but I do not posit this is a more rational belief. It is simply the belief that makes sense to me given the world I see around me. I accept this is no more and no less rational than a person who comes to believe in a higher power, or a person who decides they don't know.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2010/09/29 05:01:20
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
AbaddonFidelis wrote:As I would no doubt annoy you by pointing to the undoubted existence of many things for which we have no empirical proof or firm definition....
Such as?
you're a smart guy figure it out.
no doubt my utter contempt for atheism as a presumptuous and psychologically untenable system of thought (your obvious emotional stability excepted of course) would enrage you and provoke all kinds of lengthy and non-sensical replies, as would my insistence that rationality is not the only or even the best means of arriving at true (read: adaptive) conclusions.
Atheism isn't a system of thought.
nonsense. atheists display wide conformity of thought across a whole gamut of philisophical issues, and for pretty much the same reasons. you guys just dont like to think of yourselves that way. you're "free thinkers" whatever the hell that means.
I don't care if you're bigoted against atheists. I take solace in the fact that any argument boils down to you engaging in special pleading as to why you should be exempted from ever having to prove that your case has a single leg to stand on. I mean seriously, oh noes, the fantasist thinks I've got an untenable system of thought. Whatever shall I do?
get religion?
.... I'm doing what I promised myself I would not do - giving you an opportunity to wig out on what is obviously an emotionally charged topic for you. I'm going to stop. please, have the last word. AF
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2010/09/29 05:17:24
AbaddonFidelis wrote:As I would no doubt annoy you by pointing to the undoubted existence of many things for which we have no empirical proof or firm definition.... no doubt my utter contempt for atheism as a presumptuous and psychologically untenable system of thought (your obvious emotional stability excepted of course) would enrage you and provoke all kinds of lengthy and non-sensical replies, as would my insistence that rationality is not the only or even the best means of arriving at true (read: adaptive) conclusions.
Happily though we won't be going there
You're assuming that atheism has to be dependant on the atheist assuming there's is a more rational POV. I do not believe in God, but I do not posit this is a more rational belief. It is simply the belief that makes sense to me given the world I see around me. I accept this is no more and no less rational than a person who comes to believe in a higher power, or a person who decides they don't know.
well the comment was specifically directed at galbraithe, who I am sure does believe that atheism is more rational than theism. My own belief is that atheism is indeed more rational but that rationality is not the final test of truth - adaptability is. historically secular societies tend to be short-lived compared to religious ones, from which I conclude that atheism is a less adaptive system of thought and so less likely to be true. I can respect your neutrality on the topic of whether atheism is more or less rational than theism. AF
Snikkyd wrote:How can you be bigoted againsts athiests? Its not really a religion.
Any time a person sees a trait or belief in another and becomes hostile to that person it's bigotry.
Also, why are you being so flamy against religion, its kind of uncalled for.
As is always the case, both sides give as good as they get, and both complain they're being picked on. The race to claim persecution is very lame.
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AbaddonFidelis wrote:well the comment was specifically directed at galbraithe, who I am sure does believe that atheism is more rational than theism. My own belief is that atheism is indeed more rational but that rationality is not the final test of truth - adaptability is. historically secular societies tend to be short-lived compared to religious ones, from which I conclude that atheism is a less adaptive system of thought and so less likely to be true. I can respect your neutrality on the topic of whether atheism is more or less rational than theism. AF
You really think it's more rational? I honestly can't see how it could be. The question is, basically by definition, beyond rationality.
I also can't see how adapatability demonstrates truth. Ignoring the very loose historical concept of secular societies and religious ones (and ignoring that the former is a very modern development)... there are all kinds of nonsense that promote a healtheir, more robust society without being true in the slightest. Right now one the most powerful, unifying ideas in the US is that it is the land of opportunity, where regardless of your background hard work and talent will help you climb the ladder. It's complete bunk, the US scores very poorly compared to other developed nations in terms of social mobility - but it remains a very important myth in unifying and stabilising the country.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/09/29 05:30:15
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Meh, religion only exists so that those with low self esteem can feel good about themselves.
I do beleive in God, I just don't beleive in any religions. Almost everyone I know who is religious are just a bunch of hipocrits anyway.
Especially this girl I asked for a date from. She refused because I wasn't catholic, calling me unchurchly and daemonic, and when in church she doesn't shake my hand. Your supposed to be forgiving in Church! Nor does she kneel all the way >.> Hurts me feelins, that.
I've never feared Death or Dying. I've only feared never Trying.
I think religion came around to answer questions we simply didn't have answers for like "Where do I go when I die" "Why does the sun rise each day and set each night".
That's just my take on it.
I've sold so many armies. :(
Aeldari 3kpts Slaves to Darkness.3k Word Bearers 2500k Daemons of Chaos
AbaddonFidelis wrote:well the comment was specifically directed at galbraithe, who I am sure does believe that atheism is more rational than theism. My own belief is that atheism is indeed more rational but that rationality is not the final test of truth - adaptability is. historically secular societies tend to be short-lived compared to religious ones, from which I conclude that atheism is a less adaptive system of thought and so less likely to be true. I can respect your neutrality on the topic of whether atheism is more or less rational than theism. AF
You really think it's more rational? I honestly can't see how it could be. The question is, basically by definition, beyond rationality.
well I think its more rational if you accept rationality as the only test of truth. If theres no rational reason to believe in something, then why believe it? But you've heard this argument a million times from other atheists I guess so I dont need to repeat it..... Its not capable of permanent settlement by rational means thats true, but I think the absence of proof goes along way if, to you, positive proof is required to believe anything. IMO thats silly. almost everyone on dakka believes there's a south pole, but how many people have been there? Know someone who has? We take the existance of such a place for granted on no better authority than someone else told us that such a place exists. If thats good enough for the south pole why not for God? So to me its obvious that positive proof is not the only way that a reasonable person gets his information about the world. ie you dont have to see it yourself. Thats why I think its a little silly for (some) atheists to say "I've never seen God theres no proof therefore he doesnt exist."
sebster wrote:
I also can't see how adapatability demonstrates truth.
really? If I act on a set of beliefs that permit me to live, and my friend acts on a set of beliefs that get him killed, whose beliefs are more likely to conform to reality? to be true? It's not 100% but nothing ever is....
sebster wrote:
Ignoring the very loose historical concept of secular societies and religious ones (and ignoring that the former is a very modern development)...
alot of people think that past societies were uniformly religious, but they were not. Greece Rome China and (northern) India all went through stages where their educated classes were secular in the same way that our educated class is. People dont realize this because those stages were fairly brief (which is incidentally my point) but they really did happen.
sebster wrote:
there are all kinds of nonsense that promote a healtheir, more robust society without being true in the slightest. Right now one the most powerful, unifying ideas in the US is that it is the land of opportunity, where regardless of your background hard work and talent will help you climb the ladder. It's complete bunk, the US scores very poorly compared to other developed nations in terms of social mobility - but it remains a very important myth in unifying and stabilising the country.
ummm... a couple things....
sometimes a belief is true in a way thats different than the holder of that belief realizes. for instance its true that exercise makes you healthier. if someone believes that UFOs will abduct him and perform horrible experiments on him if he doesnt exercise, then thats probably not true in the sense that the person means it - but it is true that by exercising he's promoting his health - by burning calories rather than by avoiding alien abduction, true, but the end result is the same, so what does it matter? Thats an extreme example - the guy is obviously a lunatic - but I think that its useful to look at beliefs as potentially true or false in senses other than just the factual content of those beliefs. The outcome, not the theory, is what really matters. So whatever motivates a desirable outcome is, in a sense, true.
also when people believe things about life generally - if I work hard I can get ahead, for instance - they can sometimes make it true. If
peoples beliefs stop matching up to reality - no matter how hard they work they never get ahead - then they'll abandone them as useless (non-adaptive) beliefs and start believing something else. change in the psyche of a large group of people takes time but it does happen, and those changes do tend to reflect the new reality, whatever it may be.
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Gailbraithe wrote:
Because the everyone referred to in the statement actually refers to two separate groups. In the first instance it refers to the general public in the comic book and in the second instance it refers to the general public in real life. Surprised you missed that.
If the comic is supposed to be descriptive of reality, which it would have to be in order for anyone to believe that Spider-man is real, then the public discussed in the comic would be a portrayal of the public in real life. As such, if no one knows who Spider-man is, and the comic describes reality, then the comic can't very well give us all Spider-man's real name. Unless, as I said before, its a case of hiding in plain sight, or the person telling us all about Spider-man made a grievous error.
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AbaddonFidelis wrote:
also when people believe things about life generally - if I work hard I can get ahead, for instance - they can sometimes make it true.
I think you're confusing truth with utility. The belief that hard work leads to advancement may be a useful one, but it isn't necessarily true. Hard work can certainly contribute to advancement, but it definitely doesn't cause it all on its own.
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Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
sebster
I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself very well about adaptability being an indicator of truth. what I'm trying to say is that the specific content of a belief isnt always important. Its the basic elements, and the kinds of actions that follow from them, that really matter. On that basis I conclude that a benevolent, caring God probably does exist, because that belief helps me to live a better life.
I dont look into the specifics of the question a whole lot because they're A unknowable and B not particularly relevant. AF
Automatically Appended Next Post: Dogma.
I'm saying that the one is a pretty good guide to the other. Does hard work lead to success? I don't know. Work hard and let's judge the results. I'll draw conclusions from that. That's a pretty good guide to truth, no? A machine built on true principles works. A machine built on false principles doesnt. So observing how the machine works says alot about the trustworthiness of the principles its designed on, no?
Whether I'm confusing them or not depends I guess on whether you agree with the above.
AF
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/09/29 06:29:27
If these findings are true then it wouldn't surprise me at all. Atheist are nearly always intelligent and well educated people who are able to see religion for the poorly formulated lie that it is. People with less education and people of low intelligence are much more likely to be suckered-in by religion, since every corner of society is saturated with it.
I've always found it quite ironic that Christianity is itself a product of Social Darwinism, I.e... an Idea that has evolved to survive and spread. Vary similar the living organisms which creationists are so adamant to argue God made.
Early religions were probably very easy to discredit. If you insult 'Joojoo up the mountain' and then you aren't suddenly struck down by lightning (as promised). Or you pray to him and he doesn't come through... Then it starts to appear as though Joojoo was just a load of made up nonsense.
But people aren't happy with that, so the idea is expanded to explain why you weren't struck down by lightning. After many possible explanations are proposed and refuted, eventually they settle on an explanation that can't be disproved...
"Joojoo didn't punish you, because he is going to punish you in the next life after you are dead"
Since the only people who can refute this idea are already dead, the idea can no longer be disproven. Thus the idea has evolved to be more survivable.
Eventually after many more adaptations we get a highly evolved idea like Christianity. Christianity is riddled with defense mechanisms designed specially to prevent the idea from being discredited.
"God works in mysterious ways"
"It was part of god's divine plan"
"Proof would undermine faith"
"Who are you to question God? Blasphemy!!"
"God would never lower himself to proving his power because you challenged him to"
"You only go to heaven and meet god after you die"
The list is goes on, but these are all good examples of clever little answers that Christianity uses to sidestep awkward questions about god.
Now in the modern age of reason, the questions are becoming increasingly more awkward. And the answers are becoming increasingly more ridiculous. Staunch believers seem to be mainly just rednecks who don't know any better. I hope that in a few more generations religion will play less and less of a role in world politics, as more and more people stop taking it seriously, and start thinking about real issues and solutions instead.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/09/29 06:44:50
Smarteye wrote:Down the road, not across the street.
A painless alternative would be to add ammonia to bleach in a confined space listening to sad songs and reading a C.S. Goto novel.
what is the real solution to alienation? to the occasional work place massacre? to a culture of amoral aggression? to the breakdown of the family? to the increasing incidence of mental illness?
if not God....... what? these are real issues. what are the real solutions?
AF
Here's a question: must something exist, or even be possible, for it to be useful? I'm no mathematician, but my understanding is that they often use numbers that cannot actually exist to derive answers to practical questions. Perhaps the concept of God is equivalent to these in some way?
Anuvver fing - when they do sumfing, they try to make it look like somfink else to confuse everybody. When one of them wants to lord it over the uvvers, 'e says "I'm very speshul so'z you gotta worship me", or "I know summink wot you lot don't know, so yer better lissen good". Da funny fing is, arf of 'em believe it and da over arf don't, so 'e 'as to hit 'em all anyway or run fer it.
Orkeosaurus wrote:Here's a question: must something exist, or even be possible, for it to be useful? I'm no mathematician, but my understanding is that they often use numbers that cannot actually exist to derive answers to practical questions. Perhaps the concept of God is equivalent to these in some way?
Additionally, does God exist merely because people believe he does?
For example, if someone prays for something, and it happens, they will attribute that to God; Does that make God real?
In my mind it does for that individual. Hence God has whatever power is given to him by believers.
AbaddonFidelis wrote:
nonsense. atheists display wide conformity of thought across a whole gamut of philisophical issues, and for pretty much the same reasons. you guys just dont like to think of yourselves that way. you're "free thinkers" whatever the hell that means.
I don't know about that. Atheists absolutely agree about not believing in God (though not necessarily believing in the absence of God), but that's it.
Remember, Atheism isn't a religion like Christianity. Its a category of belief regarding God diametrically opposed to Theism, which is also not a system of thought.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
AbaddonFidelis wrote:
Dogma.
I'm saying that the one is a pretty good guide to the other. Does hard work lead to success? I don't know. Work hard and let's judge the results. I'll draw conclusions from that. That's a pretty good guide to truth, no? A machine built on true principles works. A machine built on false principles doesnt. So observing how the machine works says alot about the trustworthiness of the principles its designed on, no?
Well, obviously you can stumble upon the truth by chance. In fact, its arguable that the majority of scientific discoveries occurred because of fortuitous occurrences, Hubble's Law is a good example. However, when Hubble noticed that everything in the Universe was moving away from the Earth it wasn't his observation that made it true. By the same token, if hard work leads causes success, then it wasn't belief that made it so.
Now, there is some difference in that the motion of stellar objects isn't something under human control, why social conditions are. The belief that hard work leads to success requires, at least to some extent, that society hold as an axiom that hard work should lead to success. That held axiom is thus a truth of the society, and belief would determine almost exclusively. However, this is a different sort of thing than determining the existence of God by simply believing in him.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Orkeosaurus wrote:Here's a question: must something exist, or even be possible, for it to be useful? I'm no mathematician, but my understanding is that they often use numbers that cannot actually exist to derive answers to practical questions. Perhaps the concept of God is equivalent to these in some way?
well if you imagine it then it does exist.... in your mind. I mean hey thats real. not as real as say a locomotive coming towards you but it's real if you think it and communicate it and act on it. its a real thought. yes mathematics is a good example. square root of negative 1 for instance is a number that does not exist but which it is occasionally useful to have around anyway. I think the existence of God goes beyond the physical. I dont know exactly how or in what sense God exists - to me this is the deep stuff of the universe - way above my pay grade or anyone else's. That's whats good about faith. You dont have to know all the details. You just have to know what benefits you. If it makes you feel good to believe in God and doesnt have any obviously harmful effects, if it in fact makes your life better because it makes you happier, then why not believe? AF
Orkeosaurus wrote:Here's a question: must something exist, or even be possible, for it to be useful? I'm no mathematician, but my understanding is that they often use numbers that cannot actually exist to derive answers to practical questions. Perhaps the concept of God is equivalent to these in some way?
Additionally, does God exist merely because people believe he does?
For example, if someone prays for something, and it happens, they will attribute that to God; Does that make God real?
No, because then the opposite would also be true.
You pray and pray for something, and unfortunately, God says no. Which is also a pretty good album by Monster Magnet, IIRC. I had a brief(15 years is brief, right?) crisis of faith, but I feel myself becoming more and more firmly back in the fold lately.
I was, for quite some time, a full blown nihilist. I completely rejected any kind of belief system, and that includes the dogmatic douchebaggery of militant atheists. Frankly, it was depressing. I'd never make a good humanist, because frankly, I don't have a whole lot of respect for humanity.
When removed from the bad behavior of earthbound Christians who completely miss the point, the teachings of Jesus really do make a lot of sense.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/09/29 07:23:28
Drink deeply and lustily from the foamy draught of evil.
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Haters gon' hate.
AbaddonFidelis wrote:
nonsense. atheists display wide conformity of thought across a whole gamut of philisophical issues, and for pretty much the same reasons. you guys just dont like to think of yourselves that way. you're "free thinkers" whatever the hell that means.
I don't know about that. Atheists absolutely agree about not believing in God (though not necessarily believing in the absence of God), but that's it.
Remember, Atheism isn't a religion like Christianity. Its a category of belief regarding God diametrically opposed to Theism, which is also not a system of thought.
as a group they dont believe in an afterlife or souls or prophecy or miracles. none of these things necessarily require the existence of God. we're just used to thinking of them as bundled up with the concept of God, so people who chuck that tend to chuck the rest. They do tend to be materialists with a strong bias towards rationality over irrationality. Again these are not things that have any necessary connection to the idea of God. To me this evinces a common thought process among a wide group of people and suggests a similarity of motivations and/or explanations for those beliefs. ie a system of thought. Atheistic thought is in truth so uniform that its absurd for them to persist in thinking of themselves as some kind of community of renegade intellectuals, as "free thinkers" living in a world of religious zombies. Religious people disagree with each other more than atheists do. Which group is really the zombies here?
AF
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dogma wrote:
AbaddonFidelis wrote:
Dogma.
I'm saying that the one is a pretty good guide to the other. Does hard work lead to success? I don't know. Work hard and let's judge the results. I'll draw conclusions from that. That's a pretty good guide to truth, no? A machine built on true principles works. A machine built on false principles doesnt. So observing how the machine works says alot about the trustworthiness of the principles its designed on, no?
Well, obviously you can stumble upon the truth by chance. In fact, its arguable that the majority of scientific discoveries occurred because of fortuitous occurrences, Hubble's Law is a good example. However, when Hubble noticed that everything in the Universe was moving away from the Earth it wasn't his observation that made it true. By the same token, if hard work leads causes success, then it wasn't belief that made it so.
sure. he discovered a truth his thought did not create it.
Now, there is some difference in that the motion of stellar objects isn't something under human control, why social conditions are. The belief that hard work leads to success requires, at least to some extent, that society hold as an axiom that hard work should lead to success. That held axiom is thus a truth of the society, and belief would determine almost exclusively. However, this is a different sort of thing than determining the existence of God by simply believing in him.
I determine whether or not my belief in God is likely to be true based on the effect it has on my life. I perceive the effect to be beneficial so I conclude that it is more likely to be true than false. that's all.
AF
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/09/29 07:31:07
Orkeosaurus wrote:Here's a question: must something exist, or even be possible, for it to be useful? I'm no mathematician, but my understanding is that they often use numbers that cannot actually exist to derive answers to practical questions. Perhaps the concept of God is equivalent to these in some way?
Additionally, does God exist merely because people believe he does?
For example, if someone prays for something, and it happens, they will attribute that to God; Does that make God real?
No, because then the opposite would also be true.
You pray and pray for something, and unfortunately, God says no. Which is also a pretty good album by Monster Magnet, IIRC. I had a brief(15 years is brief, right?) crisis of faith, but I feel myself becoming more and more firmly back in the fold lately.
I was, for quite some time, a full blown nihilist. I completely rejected any kind of belief system, and that includes the dogmatic douchebaggery of militant atheists. Frankly, it was depressing. I'd never make a good humanist, because frankly, I don't have a whole lot of respect for humanity.
When removed from the bad behavior of earthbound Christians who completely miss the point, the teachings of Jesus really do make a lot of sense.
I don't agree the opposite would also be true; If you pray for something and it doesn't happen, you don't tend to suddenly stop believing in God (and you probably believed in God to begin with, otherwise why were you praying?), you just think that God said no (which still denotes belief)
I'm an agnostic Christian - to qualify, I try and live by what I understand to be Christian values (see: be a generally nice person when it counts), but am unsure if there is actually a God, as I have experienced nothing to "prove" the existence or lack thereof. I also have problems with organised religion, but thats neither here nor there for purposes of this discussion.
Orkeosaurus wrote:Here's a question: must something exist, or even be possible, for it to be useful? I'm no mathematician, but my understanding is that they often use numbers that cannot actually exist to derive answers to practical questions. Perhaps the concept of God is equivalent to these in some way?
Are you thinking of things like i?
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
AbaddonFidelis wrote:well I think its more rational if you accept rationality as the only test of truth. If theres no rational reason to believe in something, then why believe it?
Thing is, we're talking about belief in a supernatural entity. By definition that entity is beyond natural, rational consideration.
But you've heard this argument a million times from other atheists I guess so I dont need to repeat it..... Its not capable of permanent settlement by rational means thats true, but I think the absence of proof goes along way if, to you, positive proof is required to believe anything.
I think in most cases that's a pretty sound assumption. The complete lack of evidence of a cat in the room is reasonable evidence that it is likely there is no cat in the room. Thing is, though, we have knowledge about cats so that we know what evidence to look for... we know what cats generally look like, what they sound like, we know they'll tend to leave hair on cushions. We don't know those things about God, we have no frame of reference to begin considering God.
The complete lack of evidence of God is equally strong evidence of no God and of a God that chooses to leave no evidence.
IMO thats silly. almost everyone on dakka believes there's a south pole, but how many people have been there? Know someone who has? We take the existance of such a place for granted on no better authority than someone else told us that such a place exists.
Except we have the capability to consider what people tell us and take it on good judgement. There is a qualitative difference between 'scientists have determined there is a magnetic core to the Earth with a north and south poles on either ends of the Earth, and this has been used for many years in all kinds of technical devices' and 'there is a God'.
really? If I act on a set of beliefs that permit me to live, and my friend acts on a set of beliefs that get him killed, whose beliefs are more likely to conform to reality? to be true? It's not 100% but nothing ever is....
That makes it useful, not true.
alot of people think that past societies were uniformly religious, but they were not. Greece Rome China and (northern) India all went through stages where their educated classes were secular in the same way that our educated class is. People dont realize this because those stages were fairly brief (which is incidentally my point) but they really did happen.
Diversity of religion is not really the same thing as secularism. And I'd argue what was witnessed was the instability caused by rival power blocs, in a society lacking the tools for mutual respect.
Homogenity will by it's nature be more stable, if a society lacks other outlets for instability, such as those developed in liberal democracy.
ummm... a couple things....
sometimes a belief is true in a way thats different than the holder of that belief realizes. for instance its true that exercise makes you healthier. if someone believes that UFOs will abduct him and perform horrible experiments on him if he doesnt exercise, then thats probably not true in the sense that the person means it - but it is true that by exercising he's promoting his health - by burning calories rather than by avoiding alien abduction, true, but the end result is the same, so what does it matter? Thats an extreme example - the guy is obviously a lunatic - but I think that its useful to look at beliefs as potentially true or false in senses other than just the factual content of those beliefs. The outcome, not the theory, is what really matters. So whatever motivates a desirable outcome is, in a sense, true.
There's a whole lot of philosophy dedicated towards that debate. Some of it says that truth is all that matters, utility be damned, some of it says truth is nice and all, but if a belief is useful it is good. But none of it concludes that a thing is true because it is useful.
also when people believe things about life generally - if I work hard I can get ahead, for instance - they can sometimes make it true. If peoples beliefs stop matching up to reality - no matter how hard they work they never get ahead - then they'll abandone them as useless (non-adaptive) beliefs and start believing something else. change in the psyche of a large group of people takes time but it does happen, and those changes do tend to reflect the new reality, whatever it may be.
Sometimes. Sometimes a belief can make a thing true, other times it can stop people taking action to actually make it true (such as the social mobility example I gave).
And I don't think people are so quick to challenge our beliefs. We are actually quite capable of believing something despite all evidence to the contrary, if we choose. We are capable of believing things which are entirely contradictory, if we so desire.
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AbaddonFidelis wrote:sebster
I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself very well about adaptability being an indicator of truth. what I'm trying to say is that the specific content of a belief isnt always important. Its the basic elements, and the kinds of actions that follow from them, that really matter. On that basis I conclude that a benevolent, caring God probably does exist, because that belief helps me to live a better life.
Which is an indicator of a useful belief, but not necessarily a true.
Now there's a strong case to be made that a belief can be good, whether it is true or not, simply because it is useful, and I hold that view to a large extent myself. But it doesn't make it true.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/09/29 07:49:36
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Deathskulls
Logan Grimnar's Great Company
