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[Pleeb]

Yes, clearly LegoLord was out for blood when he started posting in this topic

No, but he did walk in with a "Kick me" sign taped to his back and then the wannabe flaming started.

Remember, polls don't cover ALL voters and many people would lie on such polls to not be seen as... You know.

It's difficult to say if it balances out on the whole or not.

Actually I generally consider polls accurate... within 10%.

[Yanlin]

Remember, polls don't cover ALL voters and many people would lie on such polls to not be seen as... You know.

You mean the "I am NOT racist!" effect? Or the "I am NOT a homophobe!" effect? Yeah. There's no doubt that it happens. But there's also the "I am a good Christian" effect that will make people say they would not vote for a homosexual when they really would, and the "All my friends are racist" effect where they will say they won't vote for a black person when they really would. It's difficult to say if it balances out on the whole or not.

ALL of the effects actually.

Remember, this is a POLL. Not the actual vote. You can't poll a vote anywho.

[LegoLord]

My view is that polls are interesting but not always reliable or even necessarily remotely accurate.  It really depends on how many people they polled out of the concerned population.  A poll for a presidential election that only questions people from one or two states (a locally based poll, for example) probably isn't going to be very good for predicting the winner of a presidential election.

Spoiler: Don't respond Pleeb, just think about this: (click to show/hide)

Yes, clearly LegoLord was out for blood when he started posting in this topic

No, but he did walk in with a "Kick me" sign taped to his back and then the wannabe flaming started.

I'm so sorry that someone ignored most of my post and instead brought up some point trying to start something, even though my point had been to tell people not to do that.  I really should control myself.  Oh, wait, someone else made the flame-enticing response by mentioning an unrelated subject.  Nevermind.

[Pleeb]

Spoiler: To no one in particular (click to show/hide)

Unrelated subjects are generally unrelated because you disagree with the said statements on the subject, and the original subject is generally viewed by those that do agree as an open invitation, much like a "kick me" sign, and in short the fault always lies in the person you disagree with. Some people will outright kick, some will just admit they think the person was asking for the impending response.

Digging up some presidential election data for a cheap reference on the accuracy of polls, the polls aren't too far off. Unfortunately, I can only find predictions back to the '04. And they're dead on. As for the "I AM NOT ___" effect, honestly most polls you can vote different than what you say as anonymously as you can in a real election. Unless it's a on the street on TV poll, I don't think you'd see that effect.

[Leafsnail]

Wait, so you're saying that "only" 50% of Americans would never vote for an atheist?  So an atheist presidential candidate would somehow have to amass all the rest of the 50%?  Same goes if "only" 30% of Americans would never vote for a homosexual.  The homosexual would then have to win 5/7 of the remaining voters.  Not really an achievable task.

Anyway, to return back to the original topic, I do not agree with the accomodationist position.  Why?  It doesn't add anything.  Let's try an example.

Imagine if you asked a biologist how an elephant works.  It is his speciality, and he gives you a long explanation.  He tells you how it consumes food, how the food works its way through the guts.  He tells you how the muscles bind together.  He tells you how its nerves control its trunk, and how it drinks water by sucking it into the trunk and putting it in its mouth.

Then, at the end, you say:

"And it has wings on top."
"What?  No it doesn't."
"Yes, it does."
"You can't see them!"
"They are invisible."
"You can't hear them!"
"They are silent."
"You can't touch them!"
"They are intangible."
"The elephant doesn't have the energy to use these wings!"
"They require no energy."
"They don't show up on any frequency scan!"
"Well, they're quantum then.  But they do exist."
"They don't!  There is no evidence of them!"
"Yes, but you can't prove they don't exist."

You could have this conversation about pretty much anything.  As long as you're allowed to keep changing your theory to dodge the facts, and there's nothing testable about your hypothesis, you can reach this same conclusion.  We could say that dogs are actually spies from mars.  We could say the moon is actually made of cheese.  We could say that humans actually have 6 arms.  If you follow this line of reasoning, you can assert pretty much anything and get it down to "can't be proved/ disproved".

And that's why I'm an atheist.

Call me a "fairy agnostic" or a flying spaghetti monster agnostic if you like - I don't think that the existence of God is any more likely than any of the assertions in this post.

[Nilocy]

And we all know what a craply made theory is; wrong.

[Leafsnail]

And we all know what a craply made theory is; wrong.

No, not wrong, just worthless, since any statement made by anyone is just as likely to be true.

[Eidalac]

"They don't!  There is no evidence of them!"
"Yes, but you can't prove they don't exist."

Then the scientist gets to tell me that my hypothesis is not testable, so it doesn't matter what either one of us says.

Or he can point out that, by being intangible, these "wings" can't interact with the air, and as such an interaction defines what a wing is, he can at least prove that whatever it is I'm talking about can not be a wing.


Man, this topic is kinda schizo, isn't it?

[Leafsnail]

"They don't!  There is no evidence of them!"
"Yes, but you can't prove they don't exist."

Then the scientist gets to tell me that my hypothesis is not testable, so it doesn't matter what either one of us says.

Well, where are the transitional fossils of elephants losing these wings then?

Or he can point out that, by being intangible, these "wings" can't interact with the air, and as such an interaction defines what a wing is, he can at least prove that whatever it is I'm talking about can not be a wing.

These wings fly in a quantum field.

And so on.  You could go on like this forever.

[Andir]

And so on.  You could go on like this forever.

A simple solution.  They don't exist until they are proven to exist.  If there were a "God" and he gave us the ability to inquire and doubt, then we should be able to deny His existence until He proves himself.  Otherwise, we get back to the old "Star Trek : The Final Frontier" argument.  How will you know that the god you worship is really the god that created everything without doubt and requiring proof?  Or would you happily hand over your starship?

[Leafsnail]

Perfect.  Exactly the conclusion I reached.  Although we haven't gone over the evangelical version, which runs more like this:

"And it has wings on top."
"What?  No it doesn't."
"Yes, it does."
"You can't see them!"
"Yes you can!"
"You can't hear them!"
"Yes you can!"
"You can't touch them!"
"Yes you can!"
"The elephant doesn't have the energy to use these wings!"
"Yes you can!"
"They don't show up on any frequency scan!"
"Yes they can!"
"They don't!  There is no evidence of them!"
"No!  There's loads of evidence everywhere!  It's just a massive conspiracy by all biologists!"

[Eidalac]

Or he can point out that, by being intangible, these "wings" can't interact with the air, and as such an interaction defines what a wing is, he can at least prove that whatever it is I'm talking about can not be a wing.

These wings fly in a quantum field.

And so on.  You could go on like this forever.

That's not what a wing is nor does.  You are defining something utterly new to human experience.  Go away you crazy person.  Oh, and quantum fields don't work like that anyway.  Oh, and, in a sense, all matter is a quantum field.


Also, a bit more on point, it's generally the case that the burden of proof is on the side of the person who puts forth the hypothesis.  So, while it's true that science can not prove the non-existence of something, such as magical elephant wings, if you propose they exist, it's on you to make that proof, and on everyone else to doubt it till you do.

[Leafsnail]

That's not what a wing is nor does.  You are defining something utterly new to human experience.  Go away you crazy person.  Oh, and quantum fields don't work like that anyway.  Oh, and, in a sense, all matter is a quantum field.

So the analogy works even better than I was intending it to.

[Yanlin]

People! The burden of proof is on the prosecution! With complete lack of credible evidence for "God" and massive logical evidence for either him no existing, or being VERY different from what religions say he is. This places religion as the prosecution. They have been from the very start. Considering the default is a complete lack of belief. No, not Atheism, but complete lack of ANY belief. Child indoctrination.

HOWEVER, one cannot positively prove a negative! You can NEVER prove something does NOT exist. You can only prove you haven't found it.

HOWEVER, this is NOT evidence for existence.



Did I mention Occam's razor?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Occam's razor dictates that out of two contradictory theories you must research the one which requires the least assumptions.

This means, you must research and prove/disprove the easiest one to do so. NOT the simplest! For the existence of god, you must assume a TON of stuff. However, it wasn't always so in the past. Back when knowledge was only a FRACTION of what it was today. Now we know a good deal on how it is possible for us to reach thus far with no god. That's all we need to say. It's POSSIBLE. So far, there's a good deal of proof that it happened.

Occam's razor CLEARLY states that you must continue researching the one that requires the least assumptions until you prove or disprove it. PERIOD. If Atheism were to be disproved, then you must hop on to the next religion in the Occam queue.

Whoa. Veered off topic there.

What I was trying to say is that, "You cannot prove it doesn't exist" is NOT a valid argument. Since one cannot prove positively prove a negative, it's completely moot.

Those elephant wings might as well be Schrödinger's wings.

[Leafsnail]

It's not really off topic - the idea of the thread is to say that God is an intrinsic part of evolution, so it's actually pretty much back to the original topic.

It's interesting to note how religion gradually retreats as new scientific discoveries are made - from the world not moving, to miracles, to the great flood, to the creation story.  All of them gradually turn into metaphors (except for those who take the evangelical approach - see above).