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Author Topic: Atheists  (Read 404267 times)

Greatoliver

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3030 on: March 29, 2010, 04:34:03 pm »

I don't think I...... ge.  IMHO.

But I mean, can you put a picture of an infinite universe in your head? Like, imagine what it looks like?
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First, your perception of the world is not necessarily true...
Who says?  You think truth is that we are all batteries?

Do some research into theories of perception... Look at Descartes, Hume, Kant...  It'll give you some idea of the problems that are associated with it, as well as inductive reasoning as a whole.
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IronyOwl

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3031 on: March 29, 2010, 04:38:12 pm »

Andir: The glitches are non-reproducible. The only proof of glitches that we can possibly have is through personal experience, or from stories of others. That makes them kinda useless to science, but does not mean they do not exist...

Then they're useless to everyone. Science isn't like some really big person who can't see things unless they happen a lot, whereas a person can. If you can't get any meaning out of them with science, you're just guessing.
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Siquo

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3032 on: March 29, 2010, 04:53:43 pm »

Then they're useless to everyone. Science isn't like some really big person who can't see things unless they happen a lot, whereas a person can. If you can't get any meaning out of them with science, you're just guessing.
Wait, what? If I understand you correctly (because I don't), science can't see certain things that exist, but trying to give meaning to those things without science is guessing?

I'll give you a small recap from the last 200 pages:
1. Science gives no meaning. It doesn't tell you right from wrong, good from bad. Only people can do that.
2. Science only concerns itself with reproducible events. Even evolution is reproducible, theoretically. Matrix-glitches and Acts Of God are not, so science does not concern itself with them. They are statistical outliers.
3. Science is not a method. The scientific method is a method. Applying that method to things it can't be applied to, is called Scientism and is frowned upon by people who actually practice science.
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This one thread is mine. MIIIIINE!!! And it will remain a happy, friendly, encouraging place, whether you lot like it or not. 
will rena,eme sique to sique sxds-- siquo if sucessufil
(cant spel siqou a. every speling looks wroing (hate this))

masam

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3033 on: March 29, 2010, 05:15:52 pm »

Great oliver appears to be well versed in forensics and philosophy.  While I do believe, and that choice is my own, i'm actually enjoying his rather...thorough debunking of arguments that haven't been quite thought through all the way. 

Unfortunately because they haven't been thought through all the way, the posters arguing against you are so busy defending their points that they aren't listening to your argument.

So I have a question for everyone involved in this conversation, when you read the response of your debating opponent, are you really reading it and absorbing the ideas they lay out?  Or are you skimming it while thinking of the fastest way to respond back?  Because it's the first that will allow you to understand the most and then form a better overall approach to the response, or in some cases, allow you to concede without looking like a damn fool.

(Oh, and i'm not calling anyone here a damn fool, I'm speaking purely from my own experience.  Faith without reason breeds zealots of every kind.)
And for the record, you are basically calling everyone a fool for not agreeing with you.  The points being brought up are being read and debated.  Because we don't agree with them doesn't make them any less valid or invalid.  Because you agree with them doesn't make them any more valid.  You seem to agree with those points because you claim we are being debunked, which in itself is debatable, so you concluded that we MUST be skimming and ignorant.
I'm calling no one a fool.  I'm saying that Oliver is better at portraying his opinion than some others in the forum andir.  If I wasn't clear, I meant that I believe in a higher power, not I believe in his arguments.  I may very well disagree with them but he is better at plugging holes than many parties I've come across.

Tl:DR Stop attacking and defending, and listen. 
« Last Edit: March 29, 2010, 05:19:57 pm by masam »
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IronyOwl

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3034 on: March 29, 2010, 05:19:43 pm »

Wait, what? If I understand you correctly (because I don't), science can't see certain things that exist, but trying to give meaning to those things without science is guessing?

It can see them just fine, it just can't draw conclusions from useless data. Trying to use bad data to draw conclusions is generally called guessing.


1. Science gives no meaning. It doesn't tell you right from wrong, good from bad. Only people can do that.

Science generally has no view of morality. Your point? Incidentally, the scientific method can be applied to morality, it's just more blatantly practical than most interpretations ("Not stealing results in higher yields, hence we should not steal" rather than "Stealing is wrong because it hurts people").


2. Science only concerns itself with reproducible events. Even evolution is reproducible, theoretically. Matrix-glitches and Acts Of God are not, so science does not concern itself with them. They are statistical outliers.

The last 200 pages have included numerous attempts to explain otherwise. I'll explain it again if you'd like, but I seem to recall most of your prior responses being arguments over semantics or "well you can't prove it's not" Matrix-style fallacies.


3. Science is not a method. The scientific method is a method. Applying that method to things it can't be applied to, is called Scientism and is frowned upon by people who actually practice science.

Your definition of "things it can't be applied to" is flawed. You seem to be under the impression that science excludes supernatural entities and events in the same way and for the same reason that chemistry does not concern itself with physics. This is not the case.

The exclusion of the supernatural from science is not an attempt to avoid having to deal with unicorns, it's an attempt to avoid pointless observations that everything could have been done by undetectable faeries. "Supernatural" in this sense does not mean "entities not of nature" or something silly like that, it literally means "things we can't see or know about." If we were to start getting reliable data that suggested the existence of god or faeries, they would stop being supernatural and begin being counted as viable phenomena.
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Quote from: Radio Controlled (Discord)
A hand, a hand, my kingdom for a hot hand!
The kitchenette mold free, you move on to the pantry. it's nasty in there. The bacon is grazing on the lettuce. The ham is having an illicit affair with the prime rib, The potatoes see all, know all. A rat in boxer shorts smoking a foul smelling cigar is banging on a cabinet shouting about rent money.

Siquo

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3035 on: March 29, 2010, 05:36:42 pm »

The last 200 pages have included numerous attempts to explain otherwise. I'll explain it again if you'd like, but I seem to recall most of your prior responses being arguments over semantics or "well you can't prove it's not" Matrix-style fallacies.

Your definition of "things it can't be applied to" is flawed. You seem to be under the impression that science excludes supernatural entities and events in the same way and for the same reason that chemistry does not concern itself with physics. This is not the case.
Here, let me explain it again: Science does not concern itself with the supernatural, by it's definition(s)/assumptions, and accepts at the same time that something like the "supernatural" may or may not exist, included in those same assumptions. It just doesn't care.

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The exclusion of the supernatural from science is not an attempt to avoid having to deal with unicorns, it's an attempt to avoid pointless observations that everything could have been done by undetectable faeries. "Supernatural" in this sense does not mean "entities not of nature" or something silly like that, it literally means "things we can't see or know about." If we were to start getting reliable data that suggested the existence of god or faeries, they would stop being supernatural and begin being counted as viable phenomena.
Exactly. There is/might be data. It's just not reliable. If you want to live your life on reliable data only, be my guest. I find it rather... freeing, to know that there's more. There's so much unreliable data out there, and I'm enjoying every piece of it.
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This one thread is mine. MIIIIINE!!! And it will remain a happy, friendly, encouraging place, whether you lot like it or not. 
will rena,eme sique to sique sxds-- siquo if sucessufil
(cant spel siqou a. every speling looks wroing (hate this))

Micro102

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3036 on: March 29, 2010, 05:44:23 pm »

Science is the study of everything. People interested in occult stuff and the supernatural use science whenever they try spells and stuff.

Science does concern itself with the supernatural and god, it's just there are such few ways to test it and those ways always fail that you don't here of it that much. Such as Theology and Occultism.
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Neruz

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3037 on: March 29, 2010, 05:49:25 pm »

Exactly. There is/might be data. It's just not reliable. If you want to live your life on reliable data only, be my guest. I find it rather... freeing, to know that there's more. There's so much unreliable data out there, and I'm enjoying every piece of it.

Even the proved existence of unreliable data would be a massive step forward for Theism.

Andir

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3038 on: March 29, 2010, 06:00:06 pm »

I don't think I...... ge.  IMHO.

But I mean, can you put a picture of an infinite universe in your head? Like, imagine what it looks like?

Yes, I look outside.  I see it.  It just is.

Quote
First, your perception of the world is not necessarily true...
Who says?  You think truth is that we are all batteries?

Do some research into theories of perception... Look at Descartes, Hume, Kant...  It'll give you some idea of the problems that are associated with it, as well as inductive reasoning as a whole.
My perception is not true... I ask why... you point me to theories that have issues with themselves?
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"Having faith" that the bridge will not fall, implies that the bridge itself isn't that trustworthy. It's not that different from "I pray that the bridge will hold my weight."

Andir

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3039 on: March 29, 2010, 06:07:00 pm »

Great oliver appears to be well versed in forensics and philosophy.  While I do believe, and that choice is my own, i'm actually enjoying his rather...thorough debunking of arguments that haven't been quite thought through all the way. 

Unfortunately because they haven't been thought through all the way, the posters arguing against you are so busy defending their points that they aren't listening to your argument.

So I have a question for everyone involved in this conversation, when you read the response of your debating opponent, are you really reading it and absorbing the ideas they lay out?  Or are you skimming it while thinking of the fastest way to respond back?  Because it's the first that will allow you to understand the most and then form a better overall approach to the response, or in some cases, allow you to concede without looking like a damn fool.

(Oh, and i'm not calling anyone here a damn fool, I'm speaking purely from my own experience.  Faith without reason breeds zealots of every kind.)
And for the record, you are basically calling everyone a fool for not agreeing with you.  The points being brought up are being read and debated.  Because we don't agree with them doesn't make them any less valid or invalid.  Because you agree with them doesn't make them any more valid.  You seem to agree with those points because you claim we are being debunked, which in itself is debatable, so you concluded that we MUST be skimming and ignorant.
I'm calling no one a fool.  I'm saying that Oliver is better at portraying his opinion than some others in the forum andir.  If I wasn't clear, I meant that I believe in a higher power, not I believe in his arguments.  I may very well disagree with them but he is better at plugging holes than many parties I've come across.

Tl:DR Stop attacking and defending, and listen. 
I've listened, and the idea that I am a battery is pointless unless you can provide me proof of such claims.  There's no sense believing in that unless you are trying to do something with it.

I'm not attacking or defending.  What you've done though is attack.  You are telling everyone here that they are wrong and he is right.  Maybe you chose your words poorly, but you implied that we were the ones being "debunked" here and he's spouting philosophy about the brain/sense interaction with no other recourse.  And yes, I did read your post as saying you believe in a higher power.  That's why it's easier for you to take his side in this... friend of your enemy, etc.
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"Having faith" that the bridge will not fall, implies that the bridge itself isn't that trustworthy. It's not that different from "I pray that the bridge will hold my weight."

Andir

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3040 on: March 29, 2010, 06:17:43 pm »

Ok, Siquo... let's imagine your brain is a computer... for all intents and purposes, it is, but let's pretend.

Let's say you have a bug in your system... we are human, we normally do...  This bug happened to step on two contacts in your processor causing it to throw your program into a subroutine that remembers a point in your past.  Your computer doesn't really know how to handle it, so it throws a double image up and you imagine you just saw a ghost.

Now, how is science supposed to provide you a reproducible event in that situation?  Without monitoring every neuron in your brain to determine when it was that you saw that ghost and trace back what pathways were crossed, you can't.

This is you attributing that bug to a higher power.  This is science not caring and moving on to more important things.

For all my arguments with you, this is what you are talking about to me.  Glitches in your brain that make you think you saw something.  Nothing more.
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"Having faith" that the bridge will not fall, implies that the bridge itself isn't that trustworthy. It's not that different from "I pray that the bridge will hold my weight."

Zironic

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3041 on: March 29, 2010, 06:18:14 pm »

You guys hedge this idea of Matrix Glitches and acts of God on the reliability of human perception... If it can't be reproduced then it's not real or not explainable, as there is a large chance that your mind was faulty at that moment.

Psychologists love abusing this.
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Grek

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3042 on: March 29, 2010, 07:45:15 pm »

I pose a thought experiment to the sophilists on this forum:

Let us assume for the momment that there is, in fact, a world more real than this one and that this world is an illusion. Call it the Matrix, or Plato's cave, or whatever metaphor you prefer

And let us also assume that we have no way of telling about the real world (By which I mean the one which is not the Matrix or whatnot) without some agent of that world revealing it to us by dispelling the illusionary one which we currently perceive.

We have no way of knowing if this world is run by a computer or if it is wrought by a demon, if it is a shadow or a hologram. We cannot know if it is a simulation made for our entertainment or for our punishment, if it is better or worse than reality, if this world will end or if it will go on forever. Nor can we discover how long this illusionary world has existed, or how many persons perceive it. We do not know what state we are in in the real world, nor what effects this illusion has upon reality.

Knowing all of this about our lack of knowledge, we must ask ourselves: What are we to do about it? We have no way of discerning the nature of the "real" world (if indeed there is one more real than the one we now perceive), nor do we have any way to reach it without assistance. We know not how that assistance might be gotten nor the motivations of those who are watching us from "reality" (if, indeed, they even exist), so any action seems as good as the next for that purpose. Should we simply be apathic and wait for the illusion to end itself? Should we, instead, kill ourselves right here and now, in hopes that doing so is the act that need be done? Swear loudly at who-so-ever runs this simulation untill they (hopefully) let us out?

I would say that we should do none of that. Rather, we should, until we are able to perceive some other and tell something of it's nature to intice us towards some other course of action, act as if the world we live in now -is- the real world and the only real world that is.
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chaoticag

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3043 on: March 29, 2010, 08:00:22 pm »

True, it may be. But that doesn't mean we should live our life acting as if we are in a matrix of sorts. If the world turns out to be real, then you have just lived through a lie.

Besides, why bother with the question at all if it is undetectable? It seems like a pointless waste of time, unless you can detect it. In which case, I'd love to know what the real world is like.
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Bauglir

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3044 on: March 29, 2010, 08:47:37 pm »

It seems like since Atheism became a "religion" (which is ironic in itself), the world no longer gives a crap. People believe that they are just animals, so they act like them, that's why the U.S's government is failing.

Wut. Explain the following: A) how atheism is a religion, B) your evidence for the world no longer giving a crap, C) your evidence people's belief that they are just animals, D) your evidence that people are just acting like animals (in a derogatory sense, obviously), and E) your evidence that the US government is failing (it's having some difficulties, certainly, but I don't believe for an instant that it's actually in danger of collapsing as things stand. No president within living memory could have pulled that one off without deliberately trying). Seriously, what you said there is like the perfect storm of things that are the opposite of true. I applaud you on your ability for satire, if that's what it was.

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Another question for Atheists, why do they call any religious people stupid because we rely on books written by people smarter then they'll ever be and then waste millions on millions of dollars on supporting completely unprovable things, and calling it the truth.

What? No, see, atheists (of which I am not one, by the way, and let me make clear that I do not think people are stupid for being religious, although in your case I might make an exception) accuse religious people of being stupid because of blindly following a contradictory and unsupportable text on the basis that that very text tells them to. And, for the record, scientists spend millions and millions of dollars to either prove something else WRONG, or support an idea (which, while virtually always unprovable must necessarily be testable, or else they wouldn't get funding, believe me). Generally, scientists don't call anything the truth, they just call things not the truth or likely to be the truth.

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Here's a good quote against Atheism:
"If there's a God, and you believe in him, you're good. If there isn't a God, and you don't believe in him, you're good. If there isn't a God, and you believe in him, you're good. If there is a God, and you don't believe in him, you're screwed."
That's only a 25% chance of "being good" and set. Since we go for the 75% right, we're stupid.

Yeah, you make a good point there. Have you made your offerings to Zeus lately? Remember, if Zeus exists and you don't respect him properly, you're going to Tartarus, whereas if he does exist and you do, you get to go to Elysium or better. Of course, if he doesn't, it doesn't matter either way, but it's best to be on the safe side, am I right?

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Don't stop reading yet, because this is a Christian saying.
Another fun fact, it takes more faith to be Atheist then it does to be religious, isn't that ironic too? You have more of what you're against, that's stupid.

Explain how? Seriously, the point of being an Atheist isn't having faith that there is no God, it's saying that based on all available evidence, every god thus far described by humanity is extraordinarily unlikely to exist. And I fail to see how even the fallacious claim that it DOES mean the former means it requires more faith. It should, at the best for your statement, require precisely the same amount.

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Yet another fact, it is more provable that Jesus was the Son of God then it is to say that George Washington was the U.S's first president. ???

Yes, we have far better documentation of George Washington's presidency than of Jesus' divinity (which, recall, Jesus himself never claimed). I could, given access to some of the nicer areas in the Library of Congress, almost certainly find you hundreds upon hundreds of documents bearing George Washington's signature as the President of the United States and contemporary accounts of his actions as President. Jesus has one book that wasn't standardized until 300 years after his death.

Your quite frankly outrageous statement that there has been no documented evidence of evolution is staggering, but has been far more effectively countered than I could possibly arrange to have done, but let me add that numerous aspects of existing life make no goddamn sense if you don't look at them with evolution in mind. Your ear, for instance, has two cranial nerves innervating it, despite its small size and the great distance between the nerves. This makes sense, because the bones (and attached muscle) that currently make up the ear USED to be jaw bones that were separated by a fair bit, and it was sensible for them to have separate nerves. Or look at the tongue; it has 5(!) different cranial nerves that lead to it, and the only way this makes sense is if God was preposterously high while He was Creating (although that would explain a hell of a lot), or if the tongue was cobbled together from 5 disparate muscle sets (which it was). There is INCREDIBLY well documented transition from fin bone structure in lobe-finned fishes to tetrapod, and the ancestral arrangement of humerus, radius + ulna, carpals, metacarpals, phalanges, remains in essentially every living vertebrate known. This doesn't make much particular sense, unless God was unimaginative in addition to being stoned out of his gourd, since there innumerably more sensible ways of accomplishing the same task. I could go on, if you'd like.

tl;dr You don't know what you're talking about. Take some biology courses and come back, kthxbai.

To everyone else: Sorry about that rant, it felt necessary.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2010, 09:06:54 pm by Bauglir »
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In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
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