Amos

Forget it Amie, this suits you much better, is more true to you and will serve you much better as a human being.

Let me add that most or all of the people over there are trying to be so complicated that they lose track of who they are.

Amos

I think catfights are fun!

beyelzu

Glad to see you go. You offered only empty rhetoric and no logic at all. An appeal to authority is not proof, and if descartes came up with 3 irrefutable proofs of god, how come many modern philosopher's dont believe in god?


good bye, and thanks for leaving.


calling people names is poor form.

I will miss your empty rhetoric and name calling. Oh, well, I am sure that someone else will use those tactics sometime.

Mad Kally

Have you converted to Christianity yet? Sorry, until Amie converts you there is no anger. You're kind of cute when you're defending Amie..

Amie

Hi Kally
I don't see him ever believing but thats ok since I am not trying to convert him. Hypothetically if I did try to convert him I would understand the anger *directed at me* not other Christians. Kally if I feel an atheist does or says some things that cause me to feel anger, I will feel it towards them, not every other atheist...

Mad Kally

That's nice

Buffman

What would you require to have a God belief?

Verifiable evidence of what you call "God" exists.

why would you want everyone to share *your* beliefs and to think like you? There would still be problems in the world.

Fair question. I don't! Why do some religionists make it their cause celebre? Don't many religionists spend more time "religiousizing" than taking responsibility for, and finding solutions to, the problems "they" have created?

January 22, 2003 06:36 PM

I've seen an angel and I dont really care if you guys think that sounds crazy. I know what I saw.

January 23, 2003 06:52 PM

I believe that I saw an angel and it happened on more than one occasion. I understand that you attribute your experience to morphine and hypoxia, I don't attribute mine to those things.

I saw, spoke to, and played cards with God, Jesus and Darwin. I don't care if you guys (and gals) think that sounds crazy. I know what I saw, heard and did. We get together every Friday night...right after the ward nurse turns out the lights in the hallway of the institution. :banghead:

Amie

Goliath

Everyone,

Sorry for not responding sooner (thesis writing kinda has a way of sucking away any free time). However, I've rethought the whole "definition for non-belief" issue, and I have a simpler way of expressing my argument.

Consider the following propositions:

P = I know what a sasghag is.

Q = I believe that a sasghag exists.

Now, I think we all agree that Q => P is true--that is, for me to believe that a sasghag exists, I must know what a sasghag is.

So, since the contrapositive of an implication is logically equivalent to the implication itself, we see that (~P) => (~Q)--the contrapositive of Q => P--is also true (where ~Q is the negation of Q). Thus it is true that if I don't know what a sasghag is, then I do not believe that a sasghag exists.

Sincerely,

Goliath

(edited because I mixed up a P and Q at one point...)

HelenM

Ah, well, suppose I modify Q to Q1 and say
Q1 = I believe that a sasghag does not exist.

Is Q1 => P as true as Q => P?

I would say so and I think Amie's original post is based on Q1 => P

(here's a quote from it: "It seems to me in order to *not* believe in God it must take some level of definition and understanding of what it is you *don't* believe in otherwise your position would be neutral (not a belief, not a non belief) ")

And if I've understood you correctly, Goliath, one of your main points on this thread is that
Q2 <> Q1
where
Q2 = "I do not believe that a sasghag exists"

Although I would express Q2 as "I have no beliefs about sasghags", because I think that makes the difference between it and Q1 a little clearer.

I was going to ask what your thesis topic is but I suppose that's off-topic for this forum. My husband has a PhD in math - very pure math. I think his thesis was on elliptic curves. Now he does insurance pricing and writes papers about the theory of that 'in his spare time' . Anyway I hope your thesis writing is going well.

take care
Helen