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[Ampersand]

Mm. What a lot of people don't seem to be getting, even on the non-believer side, is that the atheist answer to the question "Do you believe God exists?" is not "No," it is, 'Mu'.

[Awayfarer]

This flax weighs three pounds.

[Idiom]

I might be a little late, but Heisenberg... I can't resist an opportunity to advertise.

Mm. What a lot of people don't seem to be getting, even on the non-believer side, is that the atheist answer to the question "Do you believe God exists?" is not "No," it is, 'Mu'.

Then what are the people who answer "no"?

[Ampersand]

Then they have made a claim. Like saying that one hand clapping doesn't make a sound.

[Awayfarer]

Then they have made a claim. Like saying that one hand clapping doesn't make a sound.

Actually the point of that koan is that there is no answer. There is no claim being made.

[Dre@m]

Atheists are people who don't believe in God almighty.

Yet everyone insists on TROLLIN'!

Build a golden stairway and get over yourself.

[Golgath]

Then they have made a claim. Like saying that one hand clapping doesn't make a sound.

Actually the point of that koan is that there is no answer. There is no claim being made.

So are Atheists trying to say that there is no god, or are they trying to say that they have no idea?  I've always been under the opinion that they downright refused the possibility, rather then saying "How should we know?"

[Sordid]

Then they have made a claim. Like saying that one hand clapping doesn't make a sound.

Actually the point of that koan is that there is no answer. There is no claim being made.

So are Atheists trying to say that there is no god, or are they trying to say that they have no idea?  I've always been under the opinion that they downright refused the possibility, rather then saying "How should we know?"

Well there are bunch of different views, or degrees, if you will, to which people disbelieve in gods. Reasonable atheists will tell you they're not claiming that there absolutely is no god, only that there is no reason to believe that there is one. Which is a subtle but important distinction.

[Guy Montag]

Nobody knows if there is a God or not for sure.

You can believe there is a god, or believe there isn't a god. You cannot prove your theory either way. God could be something beyond our scope of understanding, a god could exisit simply because it exisits in the 7th dimension and we cannot comprehend its nature.

Who knows? Its such a stupid topic of discussion, I don't get how people can get so worked up about what other people's religion or lack-there-of. Who cares? You have intense fanatic theists and ultra-cynical militant atheists and both are shitty people to be around.

[Sordid]

Nobody knows if there are fairies or not for sure.

You can believe there are fairies, or believe there aren't fairies. You cannot prove your theory either way. Fairies could be something beyond our scope of understanding, fairies could exisit simply because they exisit in the 7th dimension and we cannot comprehend its nature.

There, that should make the flaw in that line of reasoning clear.

[Guy Montag]

Nobody knows if there are fairies or not for sure.

You can believe there are fairies, or believe there aren't fairies. You cannot prove your theory either way. Fairies could be something beyond our scope of understanding, fairies could exisit simply because they exisit in the 7th dimension and we cannot comprehend its nature.

There, that should make the flaw in that line of reasoning clear.

Well there you go, maybe there are? You cannot very well measure the 7th dimension, and if you can't measure it, its not science. If its not science, its not the truth.

Maybe in the year 56,000 we will stare into the 7th dimension and know for sure there are not fairies with boots and ya got to believe me!

[Sordid]

Nobody knows if there are fairies or not for sure.

You can believe there are fairies, or believe there aren't fairies. You cannot prove your theory either way. Fairies could be something beyond our scope of understanding, fairies could exisit simply because they exisit in the 7th dimension and we cannot comprehend its nature.

There, that should make the flaw in that line of reasoning clear.

Well there you go, maybe there are? You cannot very well measure the 7th dimension, and if you can't measure it, its not science. If its not science, its not the truth.

Maybe in the year 56,000 we will stare into the 7th dimension and know for sure there are not fairies with boots and ya got to believe me!

What you're talking about is falsifiability, which is just one of the pillars science stands on. The other one is parsimony, popularly known as occam's razor. As a much wittier person put it, the invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.
Also, I would say you're stretching the definition of a fairy there. Fairies don't live in the 7th dimension, they're supposed to live in, like, woods? Or something? Hiding from us big folk? That's another point of confusion there, the definition of God. Could we perhaps someday discover a race of aliens that look just like fairies? Possibly. But would they actually be fairies? Definitely not. In the same way, yeah, we might someday discover a powerful being of some kind, but I don't think we should call such a being God. That'd be the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. You know, where you paint the target around the bullet hole.

[Golgath]

Well there you go, maybe there are? You cannot very well measure the 7th dimension, and if you can't measure it, its not science. If its not science, its not the truth.

Maybe in the year 56,000 we will stare into the 7th dimension and know for sure there are not fairies with boots and ya got to believe me!

If there's no way for us to tell or understand, why do people insist on trying to pursue it, then?  You can't just blame it on an individual being erratic...   It's a well-established fact that people seem to seek out a religion or belief of some sort, though it seems to be less common nowadays.  What's the deep-running justification behind this?

What you're talking about is falsifiability, which is just one of the pillars science stands on. The other one is parsimony, popularly known as occam's razor. As a much wittier person put it, the invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.
Also, I would say you're stretching the definition of a fairy there. Fairies don't live in the 7th dimension, they're supposed to live in, like, woods? Or something? Hiding from us big folk? That's another point of confusion there, the definition of God. Could we perhaps someday discover a race of aliens that look just like fairies? Possibly. But would they actually be fairies? Definitely not. In the same way, yeah, we might someday discover a powerful being of some kind, but I don't think we should call such a being God. That'd be the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. You know, where you paint the target around the bullet hole.

I'd be curious about a definition of god that everyone could agree with.

[Sordid]

Well there you go, the question "do you believe in God?" doesn't even make sense and can't be meaningfully answered without an extended discussion of what exactly the speaker means by that word.

[Guy Montag]

@Golgath

Yeah, who knows why people tend to believe in god(s) or the supernatural. It used to be a simple explaination for things they did not understand the science behind. These days I think its just a psychological need to be reassured that when they die, there is something beyond this life and everyone deep down inside knows when they die, they die, and your brain rots with the worms and your mind and everything else ceases to exisit. Most people don't like that and if Pastor Jesusfreak offers a more pleasant alternative, people want to hear it!

Its people facing their own mortality. Religion can be seen as a sort of psychological defense mechanism against the awful thought of being... without thought.

I don't blame people for being religious or not. Do whatever the hell you want man, who I'm I to judge you? I think its stupid to try to "prove" or "disprove" something that deals with abstracts and unmeasurables.

Yeah, and maybe we will peak into the 7th dimension and see fairies wearing boots, but whos to say they are really fairies or not? Who knows, nothing in the 7th dimension could be measured anyways. Shit, we cannot even measure certain aspects of quantum mechanics and there are things that exisit and DO NOT EXISIT all in the same particle. We have particles that break the laws of physics and we have everyday light and gravity with properties that cannot be measured or fully understood.