RCAlyra2004

McDuffie,

Once again you have summarized my views quite well. Thanks.

Janey,

I hear you saying that Atheism/theism/diesm requires "faith" where agnosticicsm does not. Please allow me to clarify from my own perspective as an atheist.

I do not have faith in any God.
I do not beleive that a God exists.
I don't think it likely that a God has ever existed.
I have faith in scientific methodology and scientific result so long as it is open, publicly available and allows external scrutiny. (the public part can come later after they make their money from new development, after all we all need an reason to "discover")

I am willing to listen to any theory as long as it is possible to disprove it, or prove it. I'll explain this part later...

Here is why I beleive all of this:
As Humans we have duped each other many times during our history. We have allowed doctrine to become Law which has resulted in the deaths of Millions upon Millions of innocent people.(Think of the Nazi Doctrines as an example) Today we continue to kill each other over small and insignificant differences in ideology.

Where public freedom of speach and public scrutiny are encouraged there is less lieing about scientific claims and more truth. Scientific results can be freely reproduced in isolation of the original discoverer. (We can do it in our own labs if the theory really works).

Finally, when we are free to show why something does not work we are most likely to succeed. Remember it does not mean that can always disprove the new science but without the freedom the try to dispove we will never know the real truth. We also need the freedom to ask if a hypothesis can be falsified, and to pursure an investigation into the possibility of that falsification for the sake of all involved.

An example of why we need to be able to prove falsification is possible:

Recently the stock holders of a Mining company were duped out of Billions of dollars as unscrupulous geologists salted the tailings of their newly drilled bore holes with shavings of gold (98 percent pure gold at that...snicker!). The company said they would not allow an independant consultant to examine the tailings citing that is was too costly to get them there quickly enough and that as there was competition for stake another claim site nearby. they told stockholders to invest "quickly". Many stockholders went ahead with their investments thinking they would make much money quickly... they lost everything.


Aside from such technical examples I offer this example:

Someone could claim that there is yet another God who can suspend Physical laws as we know them and intervene in our lives. If I am not allowed access to disprove this theory they cannot rightly prove the theory (about God) to me. I need to be able to find this God for myself and then prove I am not misattributing neurological stimulus when I have a similar experience to the original theorist. (I did this for 30 years before it dawned on me...)

A similar and excellent example of this is Joseph Smith of the Mormon faith, who in relatively modern times claimed to have been given special access to scriptures from God that only he could see. Today we cannot find these tablets (nor his looking glass) to disprove him. He has millions of followers who quite possibly have been duped by the "new" scriptures he has offered up as "holy".

While I don't in general agree with the christian faith, at least they make a tremendous effort to find the most ancient texts, and to check them for accuracy against each other. The Bible is at least as genuine as an old document can be!

I just don't happen to beleive what the orginal authors were saying in the first place. (another post... later)

I hope I haven't butchered my point.

Please accept my humble opinion

RCALYRA

__________________
Living on the edge of sanity