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[Chris_24]

I'm pretty much with Lord Dakoth on this. While you can avoid it it's probably a bad idea to bring up the topic of religion. But if someone brings up religion, or any belief, then it should be OK to tell them what you think of that belief (civilly, of course), right?

As for respect for beliefs; why? I mean the people behind them deserve respect, but don't beliefs have to earn that?

[Cthulhu]

The fallacio thing was a joke I stole from one of Tycho's blog entries on Penny Arcade.  It's the act of using a logical fallacy, and intentionally sounds like fellatio.

[Idiom]

Plus, you yourself exhibit many of the characteristics you accuse atheists of, e.g. being aggressive.... Idiom... as far as I can tell, you have a personal grudge against atheists.

Sorry folks.

So I've had some sleep (and read axe cop) and yes, I am overgeneralizing. My extremely hostile reactions are a culmination to other atheists elsewhere. As I said before, their approach is extremely hostile and invasive and blunt, and generally just creates more angry people. I was being very angry at people that aren't currently here.

I should correct myself with the statement that extremest atheists with a concrete resolution that there is no god are what I have in mind, a very obnoxiously loud group, though probably small. Specifically those with an agenda. I find them and their agenda very shallow. Everyone here seems cooler than my imagination says.

Now, yes, I need to differentiate between atheists. I've been exposed to way too many intolerant "exterminate all other ideologies" atheists. These specifically are the ones I can't stand. They actually organize with little doctrines that they spout in a loop on religious crusades to exterminate other religions. Any of those little bits from their doctrine they follow gets a bad reaction out of me.

I'll be fine now, I think that was all the hostility I have left to regurgitate. Thanks for being patient.

Hold on, I'll get to the actual replies. Just wanted an apology for being rash first.

[Idiom]

Which leaves you with "I don't believe in the Christian god, and otherwise think that if there's a god, he's not relevant to my life", which is exactly what I hear many atheists say, including several people in this forum.

Personal perspective, doesn't need actual reasoning. I'm fine with that.

Moreover, it is possible to argue that, given the lack of evidence, and given the existence of various conflicting accounts about god as given by the various religions, the most reasonable stance would be to be agnostic towards any specific realization of god.

Yes, agnostic generally strikes me as the most reasonable approach.

to argue against specific concrete realizations...

from concrete atheists. That's what I had in mind. Not the "I don't think there's a god, or it's not important to me" but the "THERE IS NO GOD. PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE." They've [the extremist ones I'm angry about] got this selective application of logical fallacies. They use that stupid fallacy to counter theists. Look up that logical fallacy on a hardcore atheist site, and you can see an actual agenda and slant plain as day, and if you have a textbook on logical fallacies you can see the bits of it they left out or inserted. Brainwashing punks "freeing" people from oppressive thought. They begin to remind me of a cult. Worst reaction I got was that I "photoshopped" that page out of that book. Best reaction was the guy just shut up and quit responding.

Not basing a decision on religion does not automatically make it right or moral, but at least it removes an irrational aspect from the decision process.

To a degree, and depending on the applications and so forth. This bit I think isn't as absolute as you think, as they're not that irrational, especially not anymore, and I think religion, given proper control and the improved degree of rationality the average person can have with it in modern times, has genuine applications. Opium for the masses, though sometimes causing irrational thought, is still perfectly good opium.

It's after all based on faith. And I actually agree with you in so far that people should be more tolerant of people's personal beliefs. However, like I said before, that only goes so far as that. When it's about religion influencing other people's life however, about politics, law, education, or religion interfering with science, then I am strongly of the opinion that is has to be argued against.

I have more slack when it starts interfering with not immediately religious things.

No, sorry dreiche2, you're cool. I'm starting to think I'm thinking of Leafsnail or someone else.

[Alexhans]

knowing this will cause only more fighting, I still post it because its hilarious:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn

[Leafsnail]

Yes, agnostic generally strikes me as the most reasonable approach.

It seems... pointless, to me, though.  God isn't any more likely than a lot of other things... so I say I don't believe in him, making me an atheist.  To me an agnostic would be someone who cannot decide whether to believe or not.

No, sorry dreiche2, you're cool. I'm starting to think I'm thinking of Leafsnail or someone else.

I haven't really been doing much except correcting generalizations about atheists :/.

Alexhans - such obvious lies, I don't know where to begin.  To start with, the invisible unicorn is clearly blue.

[Idiom]

Yeah, that'd be called "being a douche".  It's still not like the majority of atheists would do that though...

Yeah, those atheists. Those are the ones that piss me off. Regardless of the majority of atheists not doing that, they're the loudest atheist voice around and they're impossible to avoid on the internet.

thus the idea should not be believed unless evidence is produced.

Exactly what you said right there and no further. As soon as you step into the realm of "the idea is false" then you're out of bounds, and right where you are is already in the grey. Anything stronger than "should" and it's no longer just an opinion.

X has not been observed
Therefore we can dismiss X as a possibility until it is.

"Dismiss as a possibility" is about as close as you can get to saying "is false" without actually saying that. Saying something is impossible, as in not a possibility, is essentially saying it is false. You're going to deny this, but we can put it up to a vote for other people if you like. Secondly, the "until it is" part is somewhat contradictory. It implies that "it could become possible". "Something is false until it is proven true" is a better way of wording what you implied. What you have there is:
X has not been observed
Therefore it is false (*until proven true)
Right?
That still contains the original fallacy in the conclusion. You can't conclude it is false or impossible while X has not been observed without the negative proof fallacy. Removing the slant that X is false, while retaining the idea that the actual nature of it's truth will develop, and merged with the sister fallacy:
X has not been observed
Therefore it could be true or it could be false.

And that is the conclusion to be drawn from the negative proof fallacies. Occam's razor selecting one theory over another is a temporary false, note your disclaimer *until proven true, generally used in selecting priority for which deserves attention. Doesn't actually disprove a theorem itself, as in it's impossible that it's true, just says to not accept it. Once you factor in Occam being temporary, the long term opinion on a developing hypothesis that is guaranteed to be right is that it may be correct or it may be false.

On the not so absoluteness of Occam:

There are many examples where Occam’s razor would have picked the wrong theory given the available data. Simplicity principles are useful philosophical preferences for choosing a more likely theory from among several possibilities that are each consistent with available data. However, anyone invoking Occam’s razor to support a model should be aware that additional data may well falsify the model currently favored by Occam’s razor. One accurate observation of a white crow falsifies the theory that “all crows are black”. Likewise, a single instance of Occam’s razor picking a wrong theory falsifies the razor as a general principle[7]. Note however that this only applies if the razor is meant to pick the correct theory for all time; if this is not the case, and it is only applied to pick the simplest theory which fits all the currently known data and it is understood that, should new data arise, the razor will have to be reapplied, then the principle keeps its validity.

So then the real question is, are you applying Occam to religion to pick the correct theory, or for picking the simplest that fits known data?

It seems... pointless, to me, though.  God isn't any more likely than a lot of other things... so I say I don't believe in him, making me an atheist.  To me an agnostic would be someone who cannot decide whether to believe or not.

It's in the personal approach, honestly. By definition an agnostic is "uncertain", generally as he accepts both options as a possibility.

Occam's Razor is neither necessary nor appropriate for this.

You'd be very surprised what "being a douche" does to your application of the ideas of dead philosophers.

I'm not attempting to do anything of the sort.  I regard it as the equivalent of responding to someone in real life

It's the equivalent of interrupting them every other sentence. Kind of like what I'm doing right now. That one time where I summarized all my thoughts into a single proposal seemed more manageable.

I'm not even sure where you got that idea from.

The people you call douchebags.

I haven't really been doing much except correcting generalizations about atheists :/.

You'd get better results exterminating the douchbags rather than trying to fix people's impressions of them.

[Musluk]

*The chilling effect from Idiom's post hits you for 40d18 damage.*

As for respect for beliefs; why? I mean the people behind them deserve respect, but don't beliefs have to earn that?

I guess what really matters is to respect others' the right to believe. Acting out of that belief is the sketchy part. This goes both ways, obviously. Also, I confess; being a religious person, I don't get 'attacks' from my religion, and I can scoff other religions' advances off. Thus the atheist 'attacks' are more apparent and pronounced.

Anyway, basing Occam's razor (or pure logic) on conundrums of life and philosophy isn't always valid, as we humans are prone to making illogical acts, theist or atheist alike. What is considerate as a human being is to respect your choice of life as long as it doesn't affect mine, and not to affect your points of view out of the blue.

This doesn't happen always; sadly the abortion issues etc are good examples. And when it comes to those sketchy issues, I tend to support logic, and will make my case on it, but I will not push the issue too hard to break the person(s) in the conundrum. I wish I could get the same from everyone, but I know it won't be that way.

TL;DR: Don't try to be Doctor House, scenarios don't work in real life that well. Live and let live works quite well for day to day life, fringe cases are not generalizations, but oddities etc etc etc.

More popcorn time.

[Leafsnail]

Dismissing as a possibility isn't the same as being false..  Dismissing as a possibility means you ignore it unless any evidence is produced in favour.  That means you know that it could be possible, but you do not act on it in any way.  And it doesn't need to be "proven" to be observed.

So then the real question is, are you applying Occam to religion to pick the correct theory, or for picking the simplest that fits known data?

Neither/nor.  I take in things with evidence in as part of my worldview and ignore the rest.  Since I have seen no compelling evidence for the existence of a god, I dismiss the possibility as far too unlikely to be worth worrying about.

As for exterminating douchbags... I thought you said I shouldn't attempt that kind of thing unless I knew someone personally?  Are these "douchbags" doing so much damage that I should destroy part of their worldview to help?  Wouldn't there be less invasive ways of doing this?

[Idiom]

Dismissing as a possibility isn't the same as being false.

But you dismissing it's possibility implies that it is impossible, and therefore false. Not the same, but very close.

Dismissing as a possibility means you ignore it unless any evidence is produced in favor.

Ignore is a much better word than dismiss for your purposes. Dismissing means that to you, but not exactly to me. I recall: Say what you mean and mean what you say. I'm not that great at it myself, especially when angry or when forced to fragment my replies, but word choice is important.

Neither/nor.

Yay. So you aren't using Occam's Razor in your approach on religion?

I take in things with evidence in as part of my worldview and ignore the rest.

X has not been observed
Therefore we can ignore X?

As for exterminating douchbags... I thought you said I shouldn't attempt that kind of thing unless I knew someone personally?  Are these "douchbags" doing so much damage that I should destroy part of their worldview to help?  Wouldn't there be less invasive ways of doing this?

Probably, but ironic hatred is an essential part of a balanced breakfast. You should be careful to distinguish your individuality from bad atheists. You'd get less unnecessary flak that way. Specifically, I like the word "ignore" better. It's very close to that "it doesn't seem relevant to my life for me" perspective that doesn't need a real argument and doesn't imply or attempt any claims at universal truths.

Oh right about less invasive ways on douche atheists. Remember I said they aren't organized? I've never seen them criticize each other, or at least not seriously. While you'll never convert them, you could at least invade their doctrines with a shared understanding and nudge them towards more politically correct or less offensive stances in general within their beliefs. Same goes for theists.

My dream is a world where non-theists (not necessarily atheists) actually organize accepted doctrines with the well being and protection of theists in mind and work subversively within theist understandings to diffuse or rationalize actually dangerous situations. Far more constructive than the current approach.

More popcorn time.

More popcorn worthy with irrationally angry, or rational people?

[Musluk]

Rational's a change, which is good. There will be irrational people spewing obscenities if this continues, anyhow. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

What the fuck did I tell you guys? That this thread didn't have to go to hell, if you just acted at least a little civil! Fuuuck.
This thread could have been good, but instead it's full of exactly two people locked in a fight to the death over religion, and some bystanders randomly whispering into their deaf ears.
As far as  I see, this thread was never to fight over( I think) but to provide insight into various ideas, however, you guys fucked that up.
This thread doesn't seem possible to save now....and I thought I could finally have someplace to discuss some of my ideas about this stuff.  I guess not.
I can only hope for this zombie monstrosity to become human again.

*cough*likethis*cough*

[Ayeohx]

I'm agnostic. After searching for the divine for over 25+ years none of it adds up.

[Realmfighter]

I dont believe in god, because its what i want to believe.

[Leafsnail]

Ignore?  I guess that works fine too.  Dismiss works if someone's putting a point to me directly, but ignore might be better on a general level.

As for Occam's Razor - yeah, I basically start my world view from the ground up.

X has not been observed
Therefore we can ignore X?

That sounds reasonable.  Obviously exceptions are made if you are specifically studying X, but for everyday life I find this works well.

I drifted away from Christianity because... I thought it was unnecessary for my worldview.  It felt like it didn't add anything, and I couldn't see any compelling reason to believe in it.

[Idiom]

fight to the death over religion

Implies atheism is a religion. Don't even go there. Unless you're talking about the cultist bastard ones I hate.

I can only hope for this zombie monstrosity to become human again.

Patience and understanding is a virtue...and axecop.
We need like a code phrase when someone is getting too heated. Like Live and let Live.

I drifted away from Christianity because... I thought it was unnecessary for my worldview.  It felt like it didn't add anything, and I couldn't see any compelling reason to believe in it.

Parallel where I say people gravitate towards what makes them happier on their own.

because its what i want to believe.

I fully support this movement, and now I'm done in this thread. You can put the popcorn away now.