She was a faith healer

 

a) I Agree regarding football

b) Surely if you find that many people with whom you associate are being intolerant to your atheist views, then it is you, not I, who needs to broaden their social horizons

I don't really care what lifestyle belief system people hold as long as its not illegal and they respect my rights to have a different lifestyle/belief system.

Ns04

 

What I really want,even more than my mortgage cleared,is for Dawkins to have a Cat Stevens moment

 

You seem to be missing the point, Christians are the majority in this country, unless I restrict my social circle to just the atheists I know, it's more than likely I'm going to encounter somebody of a religious persuasion.

 

Oh, I understand that. What I'm saying is that you seem to be encountering the hard core who can't accept that people might choose to not subscribe to religion, which I personally find as difficult to swallow as those who refuse to accept that some might want to subscribe to religion.

My experience is increasingly that it is those who are not religious who make a point of having to exclaim to everyone how wrong they are by believing.

Most religious people I know, just get on with it quietly, which is what atheists used to do

PS The order of conversation with blokes goes: football then ***** NOT religion or politics!!!

 

And that's what's wrong with the world, since when was football more important than *****?

Geezer

 

You have my unfettered acquiscence on some of the above points However you can only construe something as fact when one is sure beyond all reasonable doubt. With so many theories being debunked all the time the string theory is no more fact at the moment than life on Mars. Sometimes reality is never as interesting as human imagination.

 

Great thread! Always something to learn from some of SN's 'heavyweight posters'.

Some strange views indeed from some!

Not a religious believer myself, despite a religious upbringing. Glad I did though, as did allow me to appreciate the various anti religious views I hear and also to be able to joke about it too (without fear of being struck down or something!)

I don't mind people with religious views though, whatever makes them happy I say, although I do admit to a certain amount of deference to others' religious views, over my own lack of them.

This is not right and probably brought about by some (Muslim/Catholic) guilt.

I also don't agree that religion causes war though. Can anyone name a war that was in fact caused by religion, as opposed to some form of extreme nationalism/meglomania/greed? A war that may have used religion to stoke the fires but no more?

Good to have a contentious thread on here again, but one that won't get vaped!

Asif

 

Theories don't become facts. Only facts are facts. The same facts are available for all potential explainers to have a look at. Facts like:

the organisms that have existed upon the Earth have changed over time; if you let go of an object while standing upon the surface of the Earth, the object will fall to the ground in a totally predictable way; if you spin a coil of wire in a magnetic field you make electricity; if you place burning sodium (a metal) into chlorine (a corrosive green gas) you get something you can put on your chips - every time!

Theories are attempts to explain why these things happen. Some theories appear to be correct beyond all reasonable doubt; some theories have been shown to be incorrect, such as Newton's theory of gravity, but are so close in their predictions that they are still useful approximations today.

 

Well here's a book on just the French Religious wars between 1562 and 1598.

While you may argue the Crusades were a territory related issue, I doubt it would have been if the land in question hadn't been considered holy to christians as well as muslims, thus dragging the British over to the middle east.

 

Why can't you prove a negative Olly?

Well I am of a "scientific bent" as you say, That was my favourite type of study by far. Does not mean that I have to say it is always the complete answer to our existence.

Where did I deny BB? I actually said I would not deny it. I am prepared to say that it could have happened. I merely asked how it came to pass in the first place. Did it just happen all by itself, or did some being set it all off? And where did the energy/matter to start it all come from in the first place?

If the universe is eternal, why did it need a BB to start its existence?

When it comes to "order" I was talking about the big picture in respect of how the universe is all arranged in general. How there are galaxies and planetary systems and how the laws of nature as we know them combine to allow the existence of all these things. And how we have seen how evolution, which I have never denied incidentally, has developed life as we know it. Of course we have "entropy" too. That is a measure, as you will know, of the amount
of order or disorder in any system, the weather forecasts are the easiest illustration of that. Happenings just get changed about by external influences which cannot always be determined beforehand. I also believe that the laws of nature as we know them could well be different on different worlds to our own. When it comes to thermodynamics, it seems that removing nearly all temperature or entropy as they say will produce all kinds of strange effects. Conductors and non conductors change around for example and I gather that fluids will even flow uphill when approaching absolute zero. As far as I know, it has not been reached yet and the hopes for that are nil. Fascinating stuff!
I do not profess to be an expert since I have never done a degree course in such things. I do find it interesting however.

I will say that none of all this proves anything either way in this discussion. But you did mention it.

One further question though Olly. If we are told about a possibility, which may or may not be true, with a certain amount of credible fact about it, but not enough to prove that it is wholly correct, what would be the right name to give it?

Les

 

Why are people bothering to argue with djmisio85, isn't he the same person who asked the question "Why haven't rocks evolved then?"

 

Because this is the internet

If I met him personally and he started talking like that I would just walk off!

Geezer

 

Interesting, thank you.

Although I cannot categorically say what i said previously for ALL wars, I do believe that people use the statement "All wars are caused by religion", far too much. You would think that they were applying that of all the major and minor wars of the last 100 years or so.

The loss of life from purely religious based conflict has been dwarfed, probably a thousand fold if not more, by conflict for other reasons.

People don't seem too concerned by that in comparison, IMO.

Asif

 

The thirst for knowledge and insatiable curiosity of the great Scientists of yore has created more questions than provided answers. So many theories are bandied that it's hard to keep track! God and religion may seem an outmoded and anachronistic concept to a lot of people. However it provides solace and reassurance to a lot of the human race. In the same way that you won't find any vegans in a famine, you'll find very few atheists in a lion's den.

 

Let's take a simple example. I claim unicorns exist, you claim they don't. All I have to do is produce 1 single example of a unicorn and I've done my bit. How are you going to conclusively show they don't exist. Unless you can travel to every corner of the universe to look, you can't. And in the case of god, even if you could, the goal posts would be shifted so that he can hide from you. Do you see where I am coming from?

It isn't an answer to anything as such, it's a method of investigation.

I didn't say you had, that wasn't what I had the issue with hence saying "you can deny it", if you so wish, that isn't my point.

Start what? Consider the BB a state change rathe than a beginning, a transition from one thing to what we now observe.

You seem to be looking for the term Hypothesis.

 

Somebody made a similar quip about atheists in a fox hole and was bombarded by mail from atheist soldiers who hadn't changed their view point despite being shot at and in some cases seriously wounded.

You have of course considered the other aspect then when there is no salvation and the lion is half way up your legs, some people may realise that the likelyhood of there being a god is becoming vanishingly small!

 

Just looking at the atrocious ways that many 'believers' have met their ends ought to be enough to convince any right-thinking person that God doesn't exist. As Alan Moore wrote in the Watchmen Graphic novel:

"It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us."

 

Ahh but god was testing their faith doncha know!

 

Seriously, what is really the point in this discussion? 'Believers' will believe what they choose no matter what others will throw at them, generally. They will attribute life/beginning to a god, even if it seems stupid to some/many, and will most likely not be swayed. The same as a non believer will dismiss all of that, put it down to science or whatever, and uphold their view. This will just go round in circles with insults or snipes continuing indefinately.

The fact is, we as people are just that, we generally all think differently in one way or another, but other than in extreme cases, does it really matter? At the moment, there are theories of what life and our existance is all about, some more realistic than others, but there is no definate, and probably may never be. The way I see it, is unless something is proven, then why keep fighting about it? As 'right minded' people, uphold your views, and be big enough to accept some will not agree. That goes for both sides. Generally neither will jump fence, so just accept the notion of agreeing to disagree. Nothing is certain, so if some take solice and comfort in believing in something not of our scientific minds, so what, just as much as others dismiss that, equally have the right to do so.

Hope that even kind of makes sense.

 

If I told you that I believed that Mr. Blobby delivered my milk, you'd rightly be skeptical.

And besides, it's definItely, as in the word finite. You're too bright not to get that right, and I expect you always will, from now on.

 

Woops, I can always rely on you to pick up on a mistake. Can't believe I made that one, I really should know better.

If you do, however, think that Mr. Blobby delivers your milk, and that makes you happy in life, then while I would think you were a bit of a loon, I'd happily let you get on with that. (nutter )

 

The thing is, we could set up CCTV, deploy net-traps on the path, wait by the door and leap out at the merest clink of bottles with a sack ready to thrust over the head of the pink foam-rubber feejit and all to no good purpose. Even if our victim turned out to be some bewildered, unsuspecting, ordinary employee I would still be unshaken in my belief.

That's what's so infuriating, really. In fact some believers attach great kudos to maintaining their belief in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence. It's as if they feel they're more saintly having denied incontrovertible proof! It's an undiagnosed mental illness, of that I am convinced.

 

But, there is no proof to say a god(s) don't exist. There is nothing to say absolutely, anything, one way or another. I personally, am at a point, where I'm unsure where I sit on all of this, but I ceratainly can't or won't dismiss someones' faith. No doubt science holds a stronger position, in the minds of some, but there are no certainties(sp), remember faith is equally as strong in others, generally for their own personal reasons.

The real thing for me, is what does it matter though. Maybe it's madness, maybe not, but I'd bet most of us are uneffected in our day to day life, by the beliefs of others.

 

I disagree! There is OVERWHELMING evidence that shows that the kind of benevolent, caring, interceding, prayer-answering, designing god that most theists hope exists really doesn't, unless you employ some warped illogical non-argument such as "God is all-powerful and it is not possible for us to know his mind".

 

And again we delve into the realm of religion, rather than belief or faith, in something more than us. Most people with faith, just believe in something higher than us, just not science, religion, maybe a totally different arguement.

 

As I pointed out to Les, you can't prove a negative. The burden of proof lies with the one making the positive claim (that god exists), without that initial claim, the negative position on it doesn't exist. What there is to date, after several thousand years is zero impirical evidence of any gods. That's pretty conclusive.

Nor is there about anything else in everyday life, you go where the balance of evidence takes you.

Science is the process of discovery. Many of those who are atheist and scientifically minded tend to consider materialism a truer reflection of reality than one requiring a god. That's not an absolute by any means, but it covers a large proportion.

Because people are interested in their surroundings and its origins. Some feel a need for everything to have a meaning and others are happy to accept that they don't

 

Most people with a faith are associated with an organised religion, the deists are much fewer and father between.

 

This discussion/argument is possibly the most fundamental about the existence of humans and the universe.

Until proved/disproved it will go on and on and on whether you can see the point or not.

 

Before, I asked about the emotion of guilt.... where does the emotion of guilt come from?Please explain/discuss

Also, those who say there is no God, are you superstitious in ANY way, ie do you walk under ladders without thinking a SINGLE thing? Do you spend your friday the 13th's just like you would any other day, without ONCE thinking, that the day could bring some bad luck... Do you agree with subaru not producing a No.13 car?

I dont know if any of you can answer this honestly on the forum, all I can do is "trust" that your answer is real/ "believe" you....

Then if you ARE superstitious in any minute way, why? Is science going to punish you? or God....?