99Percent

Albert Cipriani: your logic will doom you to a fate worse than slavery: you yourself will have to assume the role of god.

Wow, I would say that to be a god is much more superior than to be a slave. Talking about logic!

gorengula

Duhh. Maybe the cold front is over FL because the wind direction moved it that way. It doesn't have a destination. It moves along a path governed by wind direction until the fronts life span has ended. Not an argument for the existence of god. Very lame!
I also don't know what beings higher in intelligence than humans has to do with proof of god. Are you trying to suggest that any being higher in intelligence than a human, has to be a god? If so, that is one of the weakest most pathetic arguments on the existence of god I've ever had the sorry pleasure to come across! Is that straight out of Theology for Dummies, or what?

How in the hell do you figure that the fact that the atmosphere not being in a different position, and our weather being as is and not different, is an argument for the existence of a god? Are you in 7th grade? I personally don't see how you could have faith at all. Did those cartoon bible stories when you were a child totally convince you or what? Does Elvis speak to you?

I must not be 'typical' because my intuition has never told me of the existence of god or gods. As far as the groups convincing each other. Rhetoric is a weapon of religion, science is a weapon of atheism. We don't need to try and convince anyone of anything. The proof is in the pudding as far as we're concerned. If theists would rather believe fiction than fact, let them weap over it later. It's each persons individual responsibility to seek the truth. Not one groups responsibility to convince the other. Oh, and read a book on weather patterns. Please.

Are you serious? Or fucking around? I will assume you're serious. I'll tell you one thing, you're denomination is indeed fortunate to have a person like you representing them!


[ January 05, 2002: Message edited by: gorengula ]</p>

gorengula

Right now I'm praying for 70 virgins to appear at my door buck naked and willing. I'm not seeing the control you speak of that will grant me this, via gods unlimited power of prayer. Lame, lame, lame!!

critical thinking made ez

Like I said, you have to get in good with God first, you heathen. No sinning, no sex, no thoughts of having sex, up to the minute forgiveness, more prayer when needed, 10% tithing for a certain amount of time, Bible study so your faith can grow more, attend church, take communion, stop lying, cheating, drinking, eating to much, follow the 10 commandments, thinking wrong thoughts, no questioning of God or the bible, drop your pride and any bad attitude, convert others to this same reason of thinking.

After following these rules you may then pray for whatever you want as long as it isn't self centered in any way. Then as long as it isn't against God's will or God's plan for you or others, you will get what you ask for. Of course if you don't get it at this point, then God is testing your faith and you must do without it until you pass the test. If you still don't get it after this, try changing churches or religions until you find one that works, only one is right.

I hope this clears up why you didn't get what you prayed for. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

bd-from-kg

Ojuice5001:

And belief that the local tea leaf reader knows the future allows me to answer the following questions: (1) Which horse should I bet on in the second race at Pimlico tomorrow? (2) Should I ask my boss for a raise?

One of my co-workers has a sign over her desk that says:

Answers - 5¢
Answers requiring thought - $1.00
Right answers - $20.00

Rational people don’t just want answers; they want right answers. It seems to me that the only rational kind of response to the question “why should I believe this?” is to give evidence that it’s true. What reason have you to believe that your answers are right?

Because the evidence suggests that intuitions about matters far removed from everyday experience are almost invariably wrong. Intuition says that space is Euclidian, that a particle has a definite position and velocity at a given time, that matter and energy are two different things rather than two forms of the same thing.

Besides, there is good reason to believe that beliefs of this kind are not based on intuition, but on wishful thinking.

Finally, “the gods” is not a belief, but a multitude of beliefs. It is simply not true that most people believe in an omni-everything God; this is actually a minority view. And it appeared rather late historically. This argues strongly against its being “intuitive”.

Good point. So I take it that you are arguing for agnosticism?

Epitome

Suppose a person has been raised in total isolation in a purely secular environment. He has never heard of god, but has also never been taught a god does not exist. It is a new concept.

I doubt I could give you a convincing argument given your premise. The reason is you and I could never agree on what this 'purely secular environment' would be like.

For instance, you probably assume that a purely secular society would be just as moral as one which has individuals who believe in an Almighty God.

However, while I believe that some form of moral order is possible in a strictly secular society - without law and law enforcement no society would exist! I have strong reservations about the previlence of personal morality.

With the question of what would be moral in such a society asside, the question of individuals abiding by it without strict enforcement would also be a major factor.

The religious are often moral not just because it's the right thing to do, but because they are highly motivated by love of their creator or fear of the consequences.

Notice, I'm not saying that atheist are amoral or immoral. Just pointing out that since religion is so previlent in the world it is difficult to say what influences an atheist to have the morals he/she has...

Christians believe that without our strong influence and God's grace, mankind would fall into immoral chaos.... (that's the concept of 'salt of the Earth'- salt was used to preserve and give flavor... without believers in God society would be both bland and rot)

So if I were to answer the question from the kind of society I imagine, I would start with the teachings of Jesus and how much sense they make. Then explain that only the maker of the universe, who is the source of goodness and love could so precisely know how we should live... then I would explain his love for sharing this with us and his desire for a relationship with us, if only we accept his offer of forgiveness for the things we've done that have hurt us and others...

Like I said, I know you'll disagree with my premise of what kind of society a completely secular one would be in... but there's my answer.



Epitome

[ January 05, 2002: Message edited by: Epitome ]</p>

Albert Cipriani

99% (of what he does not say) says:



Being God would be superior to being a slave. But being god would not. Talk about the meaning of capitalization! – Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Ojuice5001

Gorengula, those questions were not arguments. I was saying "Naturalistic atheists think those are bad questions; I think they're good ones (and so, I hope, will this hypothetical nontheist); therefore I am not a naturalistic atheist." So if you use naturalistic assumptions to say that that weather question is not a good one, you're actually agreeing with part of my claim.

But bd-from-kg had my number (so did CodeMason), and he made some good points about intuition. Let me address them.

I can think of two major exceptions: atoms and the beginning of the Earth. Democritus and others, with no access to the proof, had a correct intuition that there are atoms. And no creation-myth-maker in the world has given much credence to the idea, often believed by prescientific scholars, that the world has existed for eternity. These people didn't get the details right, but it is not reasonable to expect otherwise. So if there are two correct intuitions about esoteric subjects, maybe theism is the third.

I don't know how this one got started. Look at what Abramic and mythological religions believe. Christianity believes that the world is under attack by an evil super-being, and that people are tortured in hell. And mythological religions believe that our ancestors screwed the world up (without the Xian idea that God will redeem things), and that the gods rule the world with human welfare toward the middle of the priority list. These ideas are not pleasant to believe, and they can be rejected without absurdity. They show that religion is not based on wishful thinking.

I am not a believer in a monotheistic god; I am a polytheistic believer in the gods of Rome. It is pretty uncontroversial that polytheism has a lot of intuitive appeal.

I think that was sarcasm. No, I am not arguing for agnosticism, just that without intuitive factors, agnosticism is correct. My point was that Christians and naturalistic atheists are often believing on intuition too, and that in the long run that is much more worthy of respect than being a Josh McDowell or Quentin Smith who thinks he can prove things for sure.

pug846

Bd said this:

Ojuice5001 responded with:

I’m not quite sure what you were trying to say in your response. Bd was not claiming that because something seems intuitively correct, means it is wrong, only that the fact that something seems intuitively true, does not make it correct. In fact, given that intuition is often, though not always wrong, means that it isn’t a reliable means of deciding the truth of something. Therefore, I would reject the statement you made in your first post:

You have provided us no actual REASON to believe – if I were one of the men in question, you certainly wouldn’t have convinced me.

Really?! Uncontroversial to whom? Given that most of the people in the world don’t believe in any sort of polytheism…I think you would be straining to say that polytheism has any sort of intuitive appeal. And given that your defense of why someone should believe what you do seems to be non-existent, or at least rather weak, I’m not sure why we shouldn’t even consider it, let alone grant you that it is very intuitively appealing.

Many people have believed many things that they feel intuitively to be true that have been false – I would say if your determination for the truth of something, or at least adequate justification for something being true is intuition, you aren’t going to get very far in the world. The options aren't either "believe something is true for sure" or simply go with your intuition.

[ January 05, 2002: Message edited by: pug846 ]</p>

bd-from-kg

Ojuice5001:

By Jove! Would it be possible that you’re putting us on? Still, points made by a “devil’s advocate” can still be interesting points, so let’s see how they can be answered.

Neither of these is even a good example.

Democritus believed that matter was not infinitely divisible; others believed that it was. There are two possibilities: neither of these beliefs was based on intuition, or both were. In the first case your example is invalid; in the latter it shows the absurdity of basing such beliefs on intuition. If you know that sane, rational people can have opposite intuitions about the same question, basing your belief on what your intuition happens to be is plainly irrational. (Also, it isn’t even clear whether Democritus was right in thinking that matter is not infinitely divisible. Certainly his concept of “atoms” has nothing in common with what are called “atoms” in modern physics.)

And it’s pretty much true by definition that creation myth-makers made up creation stories. So what? If you were in the myth-making business, you probably wouldn’t find “the world has always existed pretty much as it is now for no particular reason” to be an interesting story line. And there is no reason to believe that these stories were based on intuition; they were based on a desire for a framework in which people’s lives “made sense”.

Both of these examples have another feature: there are only two possibilities. In the first, either matter is infinitely divisible or it isn’t. In the second, either the earth (or the universe) had a beginning or it didn’t. Thus a random guess or intuition has a 50% chance of being right. In the case of God or gods there are lots of possibilities: there is an omni-everything God, there is a God who is not “omni” in all respects; there is a God who created the universe but does not intervene in its affairs; there is a “cosmic principle” or “force” or whatever responsible for the universe’s existence, but is in no sense a “being” who “acts” or “wills”; there are many “gods”; there is no god; the question is meaningless. There are probably infinitely many possibilities, most of which we cannot conceive ( or at least they do not occur readily to the human mind). It’s ludicrous to think that we might pick the right answer from the multitude of possible answers by sheer luck.

And as pug846 pointed out, even if our intuitions have occasionally proved to be correct, this proves very little. Even a stopped clock shows the right time twice a day.

Another example. I can often predict what my friend Jody is going to say or do, because I know him pretty well. I don’t do so well when it comes to Jim, whom I don’t know as well, but my predictions are still a lot better than chance. When it comes to total strangers I do worse still, especially if they are from a foreign country with a very different culture. If there were people who’d been living on Mars for centuries, I’m sure I’d be even less able to predict their actions, and if they were real Martians my “intuitions” about what they would do would have almost no correlation at all to their actual actions. This illustrates the fact that the further one gets from everyday experience the less reliable one’s “intuitions” become. So why should I think that my “intuitions” about things of which I have no experience at all would have any correlation whatsoever with reality?

Sorry, no sale. The vast majority of Christians find their beliefs comforting, not frightening. That’s because the central teaching of Christianity is that your life has transcendent meaning, that there is a God who rules over everything and will see to it that everything comes out right in the end, and that in spite of your obvious, glaring moral inadequacies you can get into God’s good graces, and attain eternal bliss, by simply accepting His generous offer of salvation. As for polytheistic religions, they “explain” the many scary, unpredictable, seemingly uncontrollable aspects of this world as the product of the acts of beings who are like us in many ways except that they are much more powerful, and offer the prospect of predicting the unpredictable and controlling the uncontrollable, if one does the right things to see into the future and propitiate the right gods. The prospect of having at least some control over one’s fate is quite alluring. And what’s “unpleasant to believe” about it? We already know that this world is a nasty, dangerous place; believing that much of the nastiness is caused by this, that, or the other doesn’t make it any more so.

The same is true of every religion that has attained any degree of popularity. In every case they provide some degree of hope or consolation to believers. And in every case they offer a deep message: “Yes, in spite of superficial appearances to the contrary, ultimate reality corresponds to your deepest intuitions. You are not adrift in an alien, incomprehensible universe.” Thus they appeal to our deepest hopes and wishes and allay our most profound fears.

This is pretty much the same as saying that agnosticism is correct. As noted above, intuition is simply not a useful guide. In matters beyond our ordinary, everyday experience, there is little if any correlation between our intuitions and reality.

But the question was not whether some Christians or atheists are irrational, but whether there is a rational reason for believing in a god or gods.