Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[RedKing]

I think if I were Christian, I would be some flavor of Catholic (for one, they have the longest tradition of actual theology; and two, I like that they've retained ritualism. Ritual is important in a religion, IMHO).

Sadly, the Catholic *church* is one of the biggest reasons not to be a Catholic.

[Sordid]

- The Catholic Church stands by the idea that if you never got the chance to hear about God, you don't go to Hell.

Then why do they continue to teach people about it? 

Because (last I heard) the catch is you don't get to go to heaven, either.

Where, then, do you go, now that limbo doesn't exist again?

[Siquo]

Why live life when it has it's downs?  Because right around the corner there's an up?  It's called optimism.  Throwing it all away because you might have had a bad day is just stupidity and has nothing to do with religion.

Bad day? BAD DAY? Really, downplaying another man's misery is a sure way of getting him angry at you.

Your "holy spirit" is my own logically thought out sense of awe at the immensity of the universe and of how lucky we are to be able to live and remember what happened yesterday... but I don't attribute that to a god.  In my mind it doesn't take a god to get us here, so believing in it is futile in my eyes.  If there was some undeniable proof of a god in any form then I'd have to rethink my position but I'm not changing my life or believing that such a thing exists until such point.

Logical sense of awe has nothing to do with it. I've a bit of experience with mind-altering substances, and none of them was anything like it. This was a rush and clarity that leaves you awestruck. It was the middle of the night, yet everything was bright as day. This is no mere "oh wow awesome". If I could put this shit in a bottle I'd have the world addicted.

If I were to say something that generalizes your reality like you are trying to do to us I'd have to say:

I'm sorry you feel that way, and if I did that.

piss off such a god

Mine does not judge.

Now do you understand why what you say is condescending?

No. What exact part was it that you found condescending? I really don't mean to be that way.

[RedKing]

- The Catholic Church stands by the idea that if you never got the chance to hear about God, you don't go to Hell.

Then why do they continue to teach people about it? 

Because (last I heard) the catch is you don't get to go to heaven, either.

Where, then, do you go, now that limbo doesn't exist again?

The Mohandas Gandhi Eternal Coffee Shop. It's kind of like that waiting area in the airport--there's a place to sit, some good but not great food, and some knick-knacks to amuse yourself with. FOREVER.

[Grakelin]

- The Catholic Church stands by the idea that if you never got the chance to hear about God, you don't go to Hell.

Then why do they continue to teach people about it? 

Because (last I heard) the catch is you don't get to go to heaven, either.

Where, then, do you go, now that limbo doesn't exist again?

You go here.

[masam]

How does lack of proof not equal lack of god?

  I know this has nothing to do with the last few pages, i'm just taking the time to answer someone who asked this question in response to my own.

Lack of proof does not = the lack of a thing.  that's a logical fallacy.  evidence simply does not exist in one way or another to disprove or prve that statement.  And any one who believes that science disproves god needs to read "The Language of God."  It's written by the guy who directed the human genome project, and is one man's belief on how science and faith don't have to be mutually exclusive.

[G-Flex]

Lack of proof does not = the lack of a thing.  that's a logical fallacy.  evidence simply does not exist in one way or another to disprove or prve that statement.

And it's also logically fallacious to consider something true despite a lack of evidence.

[Andir]

Now do you understand why what you say is condescending?

No. What exact part was it that you found condescending? I really don't mean to be that way.

The part that says we all think about suicide because we are atheistic.
And yes, I consider my logical overview of the universe the same as you consider your awe inspiring moment.

Also, do not dwell on the use of the word "day" in the above post.

[Siquo]

This has been said a 100 times in this thread already but I'll try again.

Lack of proof does not = the lack of a thing.  that's a logical fallacy.  evidence simply does not exist in one way or another to disprove or prve that statement.

And it's also logically fallacious to consider something true despite a lack of evidence.

No, no, no it's not. That's called a premise. Otherwise nothing would be true and logic would really be useless. Think about it, in logic you say: If B is true, then A is true. But how can you ever decide if B is true without evidence? Because that evidence would be C, and you will get: if C is true, then B is true, and if B is true then A is true. But how to decide if C is true? Etc, etc.
So science says: The universe is real, and everything we can measure is real. That's the premise. Theists might say: God is real and heaven is real and the universe is an illusion. That's their premise. Both premises are equal, logically.


@Andir: Well, I've got the good luck of being a pessimist. Every day is a good day, because the worst that can happen is exactly what I expected. Murphy's got nothing on me But it doesn't help in wanting to live to see the next day, it's gonna suck even more than this one (note: that was back then, things are different now).
I never said that "anyone who doesn't believe must want to commit suicide". It was a personal experience that I shared, and the lack of purpose drove me towards bleak emo stuff (note: emo didn't exist back then). It's a common question amongst humanity: Why is there suffering? No reason just because, or it has a reason and serves a bigger Purpose? I found solace in that last one.

[Andir]

Why is there suffering? No reason just because, or it has a reason and serves a bigger Purpose? I found solace in that last one.

There's suffering because people are dicks.  Sure, if all people believed there would be punishment in the afterlife for not doing the right thing (debatable on what the right things are... as mentioned before, some people believe right is flying a plane into a building...) then the world would be all happy and make sense.  But people are unique and random for the most part.  They do things based on genetic predisposition, perception and upbringing and sometimes that doesn't jibe so they massacre millions of Jewish folks because they had bad experiences with them.  That's just how it works.  Society can try to control people all they like, but if you believe your god put us all here to test our responses, then it also put those here to genocide a group of people to do the testing.  That, frankly, irritates me to no end when someone says "God has a purpose" or some such nonsense.

[Sordid]

Lack of proof does not = the lack of a thing.  that's a logical fallacy.  evidence simply does not exist in one way or another to disprove or prve that statement.

And yet that's precisely what people do all the time. You look into your garage and you see no dragon. Do you therefore conclude that there is no dragon, committing the aforementioned logical fallacy? Or do you seriously entertain the notion that the dragaon is invisible?
It's a question of intellectual honesty. Greater claims require greater evidence, yes? That's hardly controversial. But then if you're willing to affirm the non-existence of a dragon based on such flimsy evidence as personal experience, then it's hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty of the highest order to seriously entertain the possibility of the existence of a god, which is a much greater claim with much less evidence.

So science says: The universe is real, and everything we can measure is real. That's the premise. Theists might say: God is real and heaven is real and the universe is an illusion. That's their premise. Both premises are equal, logically.

Except for the fact that science works and produces actual, measurable, useful results, whereas the only thing religion produces are the myriad of logical fallacies, paradoxes, and inconsistencies in its own structure. But yeah, sure, otherwise these premises are totally equal.

[Areyar]

huh. the dragon is just invisible it may still be there.

So.

How about time travel, is it possible? Some of the same reasoning can be applied.
If it is possible, then we WILL use/have used it to mess things up even more.
Which either proves that time travel defeats itself (by ending the offending timeline) or that humanity never gets to live long enough to invent it.
The same absence of time travelers can be interpreted to prove time travel is impossible.
UFO fundamentalists will see proof in it that the bible was written by time travelers.
Making conclusions on insufficient evidence just does not work.
The only sane conclusion to make (from the absence of evidence) is that, pending conflicting data, it just doesn't exist.

[dreiche2]

It's a common question amongst humanity: Why is there suffering? No reason just because, or it has a reason and serves a bigger Purpose? I found solace in that last one.

Guys, I don't think you should argue with Siquo about this part, quite frankly. Arguing against a personal belief he found solace in just because you disagree doesn't reflect well on you, unless you have good reasons for doing it. Especially as long as it's a rather inoffensive belief, such as saying "there might be a bigger purpose to things".

Lack of proof does not = the lack of a thing.  that's a logical fallacy.  evidence simply does not exist in one way or another to disprove or prve that statement.

And yet that's precisely what people do all the time. You look into your garage and you see no dragon. Do you therefore conclude that there is no dragon, committing the aforementioned logical fallacy? Or do you seriously entertain the notion that the dragaon is invisible?

The statement as such is correct. Lack of evidence does not imply lack of existence. What you describe is evidence to the contrary. Which does imply lack of existence, more or less strongly, depending on the context and level of 'imply' we're talking about.

[Sordid]

What you describe is evidence to the contrary.

No it's not. What it is is lack of evidence where evidence was expected. It's still lack of evidence. There's no such thing as negative evidence, and if you disagree I'd like you to provide an example.

It's a common question amongst humanity: Why is there suffering? No reason just because, or it has a reason and serves a bigger Purpose? I found solace in that last one.

Sooooo... you're happy to suffer, because a being more power than you wants you to. Yeah, I think you've chosen a very fitting nickname.

[dreiche2]

What you describe is evidence to the contrary.

No it's not. What it is is lack of evidence where evidence was expected. It's still lack of evidence. There's no such thing as negative evidence, and if you disagree I'd like you to provide an example.

I didn't say negative evidence, I said evidence to the contrary. You have a statement A, you negate it and get statement B. You can have evidence for either.

Seeing no dragon in your garage is evidence for there being no dragon in your garage.

Also, before we take this too far: The original point was, lack of evidence does not imply non-existence. Here's an example:

There is currently no evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson. That does not imply that it does not exist.

Sooooo... you're happy to suffer, because a being more power than you wants you to. Yeah, I think you've chosen a very fitting nickname.

He finds solace in the fact that the suffering might not be meaningless. Give him a break.