WCH

"Does this dress make me look fat?"

Sorry, too tempting to pass up.

(really, though, does anyone want to answer that?)

[edit]
Oh, and *bump*

Didn't notice last post was 2 weeks old until after I posted. :angel:

Never heard of a priori?

jdlongmire

What if you (Atheists) are wrong?

Evoken

This question can come back to haunt you jdlongmire..what if you are wrong?

WCH

If a theist is wrong and there is no God, then he'd never know and therefore it'd never hurt him to be wrong.

Dyrwen

I like to answer that one as "I wasn't built that way."

Whereas you can be fine with knowing someone up there loves you that may or may not exist, I need to know them personally. I need to say, "Who are you? What do you do? How can I describe you?" etc., and get an appropriate reply.

Some are fine with living their lives and accepting things on faith. Others just need proof for it before they go believing it. I don't walk into a court room, hear the guy speak and follow faith from there on. I look at the evidence, weigh the benefits of likelihood, etc., and figure out whether he did it or not. Faith gets you nowhere but close minded, reason lets you scoot about a bit.

Biff the unclean

I assume you are talking about Jesus and his Dad.
The same fate would await me if I believed in them or not.
Not believing in this primitive superstition would send me to Hell.
But if I actually believed in them I would have to believe their biographies in the Bible. Since they are both monsters, if I believed they really existed my morality would force me to take arms against them. The whole world drowned, cities blasted, old men forced to stab their own sons to death, Billions of my fellow humans burning for all eternity merely because they held the wrong, but honest, opinion. No, if I believed this nonsense I would still be sent to Hell for spending my life defending mankind against it's sworn enemy, God.

Riddick

Let's say there's a golf tournament on TV. They show Tiger Woods golf scorecard on the screen.

Tiger's scorecard tells us a lot about him.

You're saying, "Tiger's scorecard is no good. I must personally talk to Tiger, see the card, see him play the 18 holes."

Well, all I can say is, those requirements are pretty demanding. Most people just take the tv commentators word as authentic.

WCH

Most people also don't make the score Tiger Woods got on a specific set of 18 holes the fundamental driving force behind their life. If someone told me that I should be doing this, then I damned sure would go in person to see him play those 18 holes before dedicating my life to them. If I'm just checking the scores and they aren't that important to me, then I'll probably take it at face value, however.

Another counter-argument: the more unlikely the event, the higher the standard of evidence. For instance, I am aware that people get 5 under par quite often, even on difficult courses. I may be impressed that he's managed to do this for the 20th time in a row, but it's not that sensational. If one reporter, however claimed that Tiger had gotten a score of 25 on the 18 holes, then I would definitely not believe him without checking up on it myself, since scoring 50 under par is not something that is common, or even easily believable.

Now, if you told me that Tiger had been struck in the head with a golf ball on the 17th hole, lay dead for several days and then got up, perfectly well, and landed a hole-in-one on the 18th immediately, I wouldn't even bother looking into it, as it's so absurd that you could only possibly be joking, or perhaps insane. This is what you are expecting us to take at face value.

Buffman

(Sorry Mods, et al. I feel a rant approaching.)

If I am wrong, then I am wrong. Been there! Done that! Survived and learned why I was wrong.

Why are religious believers so fearful of the unknown and death? Perhaps the Theory of Evolution offers a key insight/answer.

One estimate is that life has been around for 3.5 "billion" years.

Homo sapiens have been around for an estimated 2.4 "million" years.

http://books.nap.edu/html/creationism/human.html

The monotheistic religious faith belief practices have been around for roughly...(take your pick as long as it doesn't exceed 5.0 "thousand" years):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotheism

http://www.geocities.com/psychohisto.../TheExile.html

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10499a.htm

http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/...Monotheism.htm

http://www.sullivan-county.com/z/zor3.htm

The Christian religious faith belief system has been around for approximately 2.0 "thousand" years.

The first printing press is 5.5 "hundred" years old. (Codifying the superstitions and myths.)

The Theory of Evolution is only around 1.45 "hundred" years old.

Currently there are 10,000 distinct religious groups including 33,830 Christian denominations. There is only "one" Theory of Evolution...though there are a number of theorems concerning exactly how it functioned to provide what we study today.

As science, technology and accurate education combine to provide the means that will lead us to a greater level of objectivity and accurate knowledge, they will replace the subjective human beliefs in the supernatural which were created to answer questions concerning the unknown. However, they may never be able to change our inherited characteristics without doing irreparable damage to that which makes us homo sapiens. (That does not preclude the possibility of a homo superior evolving.) IMHO, what is of the utmost importance is that our species develop successful replacement systems for the admittedly positive and productive influences of past religious faith beliefs on our long-term social/civil welfare and progress. Of course this is all dependent on humanity not passing into extinction before it can attain the degree of objectivity necessary to work in an environment of tolerance and ultimate harmony...an environment that is currently headed in the opposite direction because of ill-informed, inadequate, often irrational and unqualified, leadership and information sources. Rather than creating more ways to hold on to the fears, superstitions and myths of the past, we should be embracing this (in terms of time) dawn of a new age of human enlightenment rather than attempting to undermine/suppress it. (End rant)

Chris Weimer

It's like being one with [insert your favorite literary character here]. For me, it's Ender, it's Jonas, it's Winston, it's Siddhartha, it's Socrates, it's whoever inspires awe in me. That is how one could be one with god and Jesus.

"How do you know that this isn't some purgatory and that God is testing you by making everything seem as though he couldn't exist before he sent you to hell?" My answer "Why are you in purgatory too?"